02/02/2024

Inflation has Declined, but Grocery Prices Remain High

Several ongoing issues purport to be why prices remain inflated

Americans are finally getting a break from inflation, with prices for gasoline, used cars and health insurance all falling over the past year, relieving families and buoying President Joe Biden's 2024 reelection bid. But prices painfully remain high for one particularly frequent purchase: groceries.

Grocery prices have jumped by 25 percent over the past four years, outpacing overall inflation of 19 percent during the same period. And while prices of appliances, smartphones and a smattering of other goods have declined, groceries got slightly more expensive last year, with particularly sharp jumps for beef, sugar, juice and other items.

Stubbornly high grocery prices represent a critical drain on the finances of tens of millions of people and remain, along with housing, perhaps the most persistent economic challenge for the Biden administration as it tries to convince Americans the economy is back on solid footing. For all the attention on gas prices and housing, more than two-thirds of voters say inflation has hit them hardest through higher food prices, according to a November 2023 survey by Yahoo! Finance/Ipsos. That’s more than 50 percentage points higher than any other category.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.