Food inflation is almost 30% higher than it was in 2019
The year-over-year headline and core CPI numbers (3.4 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively), underscore how the hidden level of inflation reduce standards of living.
The following analysis is my summary, with slight modification, of an article published by the American Institute for Economic Research written by Peter C. Earle on February 7, 2024
Below are the prices of various foodstuffs and ingredients, as well as the price changes from the pre-pandemic period to the most recent data (December 2019 to December 2023). The prices are provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Average Prices by Product series, not seasonally adjusted:
The various indices (Consumer Price Index, Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index) obscure individual price changes. For example: the US CPI Urban Consumers Food-at-Home index, in December 2023, showed a year-over-year change of 1.31 percent (from 299.089 to 303.005). Below are the actual December 2022 to December 2023 changes in individual food items.
As an example, Avocado prices, according to the Mexico Products CPI, have risen 27.2 percent from December 2019 (83.80) to December 2023 (106.554). From December 2022 (95.922) to December 2023, they rose 11.1 percent.
Comparing these numbers with the year-over-year headline and core CPI numbers (3.4 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively), two significant insights emerge. The individual price changes above, over a four- and one-year period, frequently underscore how price indices obscure trends in prices which, at specific times can be considerably more expensive than the headline figures suggest. Second, the damage of expansionary monetary policies and massive government [deficit] spending is painfully apparent.
Well over a year after the lies about Vladimir Putin, gas station owners, ocean shippers, and corporate profits have been told and forgotten, and despite the cynical political impudence of calling a massive green spending bill an “Inflation Reduction Act,” spending at home for food in 2024 will be much more expensive than it was in 2023, and significantly more than it was four short years ago.