Once upon a time, I used to spend Sunday mornings with a cup of coffee, a bagel or a muffin, and the Sunday newspaper.
While it was often huge and kind of cumbersome, the Sunday paper gave me the chance to find stories so filled with information that I’d enjoy them over more than one cup of coffee, a bright, colorful comic section that made me laugh, a wide selection of classified ads, and grocery coupons.
Lots and lots of grocery coupons.
While I didn’t use the coupons a lot because the fine print often included things that left me out — my apartment didn’t have enough space for a 20-pack of paper towels or enough laundry detergent to last me two years — they were a good thing to have.
I stopped getting the Sunday paper a while ago because (a) I never had time to read all of it and (b) finding a physical Sunday paper is kind of like a needle in a haystack these days.
But recent events have made me seriously consider looking for that needle because I could use some .50 to .75 off coupons right about now.
If you’ve hit the grocery store any time in the last few months, you’ve probably felt like searching for the Sunday paper yourself.
Now, usually when you read about consumer stuff in the Philadelphia Hall Monitor newsletter, it’s because Lance Haver, who’s a lot better at this stuff than me, is telling you something about water rates, or public transportation.
But no one is really talking about food prices. So, since I’m in the grocery lane a lot, I figured I would.
Now you would think that shopping for food for a family of two purchasing mostly store brands wouldn’t cost you nearly $200, but you’d be wrong. Add to this the fact that I live in Delaware, a place with no sales tax, and you’ll understand why I’m grabbing the scissors, an envelope, and the Sunday paper.
According to the latest numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, food prices right now are 29% higher than they were prior to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The increase in prices between July and August of 0.6% is the highest monthly increase since August 2022.
Those are national statistics. But the story for Pennsylvania/New Jersey and Delaware isn’t much better. Food prices went up 1.4% during the same time period with the index for food going up by 2.4% with prices going up in all the major food categories. Prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs went up 4.1% in the Delaware Valley, as did fruit and vegetable prices.
Now why is this happening?
There are a bunch of reasons, and all of them show that we might all need to either become extreme couponers or get a COSTCO membership.
One, the international supply chain is still recovering from the pandemic. Two, Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine caused gas prices to go up and those costs are passed along to consumers by stores who get their goods via truck.
Another reason for the increase in prices is climate change. For example, in 2022, drought caused cattle farmers to sell some of their cows, which led to a decrease in beef supply. While the drought eventually ended, the supply of cows for beef hasn’t caught up.
While the bird flu epidemic that hit Texas in late 2024 has subsided and eggs are down 70% from their March high, economists say that we’re still not out of the woods when it comes to egg prices, something I can personally attest to.
But two reasons why food prices are high right now are directly connected to the fact that America elected a playground bully to the nation’s highest office in 2024.
President Donald Trump has spent much of the first year of Trump 2.0 (This Time It’s PERSONAL!!!) doing things to the economy that have made no sense to anyone who has actually passed an economics class.
One of those things has been slapping tariffs on anyone and anything, which has led to our neighbor to the south (Mexico) and our neighbor to the north (Canada) responding in kind. Although he was told by lots and lots of economists that slapping tariffs on things is a bad idea in an interdependent economy, he didn’t listen.
While the USDA says that less than 15% of America’s food supply is imported, some of what comes in from other countries — sugar, fruit, nuts and vegetables — plays a pretty significant role in American diets.
And reason number four is that a lot of the food that could offset these price increases is either Is some of the increase due to the Trump Administration’s efforts to meet Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s goal of arresting 3,000 immigrants a day? Yep. I grew up in the garden section of the Garden State and I can tell you with no fear of contradiction that there were very few native-born Americans picking the blueberries and cranberries that grew near my parent’s house.
It was the same scenario in places where other veggies grow as the people who usually picked them either went back to where they came from out of fear of being snatched up, put into a van and carted off or were snatched up, put into a van and carted off when they got to work.
In any case, a lot of fruits and veggies died while waiting to be picked and sent to grocery stores, something that’s led to an increase in prices.
Now, again, if you know anything about economics, you know that while the government may create circumstances that impact food prices, it doesn’t set those prices. The entities that produce the food do that.
But I wonder if the American public is going to finally demand that the government stop doing things that make it harder for those production entities to make a profit while keeping prices reasonable.
Let’s hope so. Dumpster diving for coupons isn’t my idea of fun.
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