Grocery prices are finally falling..Yeah!!!!

[Peacetrain]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/grocery-prices-are-finally-falling/ar-BB1mrA01

"Food shoppers can finally breathe a slight sigh of relief: After years of increases followed by months of plateau, grocery prices fell last month.

Grocery prices retreated 0.2% from March to April, adjusted for seasonal swings, according to inflation data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics."

[Lovie777]

1. Not in Los Angeles as yet............................

[yagotme]

2. Key words "adjusted for seasonal swings".

May mean prices still could have risen, not just as much as expected with seasonal stuff. Word games.

[SoFlaBro]

3. As that shit falls more and more, shit-eating MAGA will talk about motherfucking grocery prices less and less.

"Grocery prices don't matter." MAGA is so full of fucking shit.

[elocs]

8. 3 "shits", a "motherfucking", and a "fucking" all in one short comment. I'm impressed.

Especially fucking shit which differentiates it from the regular shit.

[LiberalFighter]

4. I always bargain shop.

As s single senior male my expenses aren't as much. But still check prices. I shop at Meijer and Kroger. Kroger milk is much better than Meijer. Meijer sours faster. Another product I get a dollar cheaper than at Kroger.

[Johnny2X2X]

5. Good news

I am fascinated by the psychoilogy of inflation. Grocery prices went up, we all noticed it. But I would bet the amount they went up would surprise most people. They didn't rise 50% or even 30% like most might guess. And even the 25% increase since 2019 that is the actual number includes dining out, which has far outpaced grocery inflation for some time now. But people tend to think with the special cases. And they tend to let emotion over rule data.

So 25%, that means $100 in 2019 on groceries now cost $125. Or $200 now costs $250. But the people who talk most about grocery prices will tell you that's not what they're seeing, they see huge increases and all the data in the world can't tell them they aren't paying double. They'll point to eggs, whose price fluctuated greatly due to bird flue, or milk whose price fluctuated because of some supply issues. They'll say, my one item I always get used to be $3, and now it costs $7, see, food is more than double now. And they'll also discount how their spending habits and life may have changed. Maybe they dine in more now, maybe their tastes changed to more expensive items. Maybe they had another child.

And inflation is this big thing outside of ourselves that we can't control, so people view it as something being done to them. So inflation is this outside factor to them, but wage growth is internal. People view wages as something they earned. If their income went up 25%, that has nothing to do with anything in the economy except their own hard work. And wage growth since before Covid has exceeded inflation. So on average, yeah, maybe your grocery bill went from $200 a week to $250 a week, but your income also went up the same %. Few are going to see it that way, I know that. But the data suggests that people are doing better now than before Biden took office. And more than that, polling suggests people are doing better too:

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/05/us/cnn-better-off-2024-quiz-dg/

And I did my own DU poll a while back and like 75% of respndants were doing better. Doesn't mean there aren't those that are struggling, doesn't mean there isn't a lot of work to do. But the fact is that despite inflation, people feel they're better off now, that's the data.

[Peacetrain]

6. Thank you for that breakdown... and true that our income which is social security went up

our millennial sons income has also risen.. when the prices fall you take it in and keep on going, but when they go up, that ouch will make us all yelp a little.. Overall we are doing as well as we ever did.. I know my nieces and nephews miss some of the covid rebates and cuts that surely helped many .. and I am sure in some places it is much harder than in others.. but I have to admit, our grocery bill has been going down..which makes Mr Peacetrain and I happy campers

[Johnny2X2X]

7. We're in a weird spot in this country

A Spot where like 2/3s of the people are doing better and will tell you so, but a lot of those same people who are doing better will tell you the country isn't though.

And then there's another group of people who will swear up and down they're doing worse when you can point to how they're actually doing better individdually. I have a friend like this I saw last week, he can't stop complaining about food prices and specificaully resturant prices. He's a good friend and I know for a fact he's gotten a big promotion and several large yearly raises. So I say, "Dude, you're making like $50K a year more than before Coivd, you really care about the price of a McDouble?"

And people are struggling, there will always be people struggling. Not everyone has a good job, not everyone takes these price increases in stride and hasn't been hurt by them. And increasing rent and interest rates create hardships too. And you can't tell people struggling with rent that rent prices are actually decreasing right now and have been for over a year, they still pay more now than 5 years ago. And you can't tell people interest rates right now aren't really unusually high, this is closer to historicalk normal than the 3% rates were. Those people are still struggling to buy their first homes and seeing crazy bidding wars price them out.

It's a really hard problem for Dems who are by default the voice of people who need help and who aren't the powerful. The data says we are doing better as a country in almost every way under Biden, but that's still not going to undue 40 years of Trickle Down overnight. So you have to recognize that people are still suffering at the same time as show them the gains we are making.

And it's pre Covid as a comparsion, the public is willing to give Trump an economic pass for Covid (even though they shouldn't.) The economy is better now than 2019. Poverty is falling. Real icomes are higher. Growth is better, Wage growth is much better. Job growth is way way better.More people have heatlh care. Less people are going bankrupt, by a lot, in 2019 there were 480,000 personal bankruptcies, in 2023 there were 260,000. Crime is down, lowest it;s been since the 1960s for both violent and property crime. So you've got to communicate these many successes, but at the same time acknowledge not everyone is doing great and we must do better for them.

[werdna]

9. I wouldn't plan that trip to Dizzyworld yet, though -

- according to various sources, grocery prices have risen almost 25% since Covid hit.