Americans Rethink Grocery Shopping Habits as Food Prices See Their Biggest Jump in Fifty Years Nationwide

Grocery bills have climbed so sharply over the past several years that millions of Americans have fundamentally changed how they shop, cook and eat, according to interviews with shoppers across the country conducted as part of a joint reporting effort between the Associated Press and three local news outlets.

A historic price surge

The cost of buying food to eat at home has risen 33% in U.S. cities since the start of 2019, according to government data, compared with just 6.4% growth over the roughly seven and a half years before that stretch began. The scale of the increase marks the steepest jump in grocery prices in half a century, driven by a combination of factors: pandemic-era supply chain disruptions, rising labor and transportation costs, droughts and disease outbreaks like bird flu that reduced production, tariffs that pushed up prices on imported goods such as coffee and chocolate, and the ongoing war in Ukraine, which disrupted global oil and fertilizer supplies. More recently, the conflict in the Middle East has added fresh upward pressure on food prices, turning affordability into a central issue heading into this fall's midterm elections.

Wages haven't fully closed the gap

Average weekly earnings for full-time workers have technically outpaced grocery price growth by a small margin since 2019, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. But economists say that statistic doesn't capture how consumers actually experience rising costs. Jared Bernstein, a senior policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy who previously chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Biden, said wage growth significantly outpaced grocery prices before the pandemic, making the recent shift especially noticeable to shoppers, particularly as other major costs like housing and electricity have climbed as well. Describing how deeply consumers track food costs specifically, Bernstein said, "People have a well-honed sense of those prices, just as much as gas and maybe more so."

The strain isn't distributed evenly. Americans spent an average of 12.9% of their pretax income on food in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but that figure jumped to 33% for households in the lowest income bracket. Regional differences matter too: food prices in St. Louis rose 2% year-over-year in June, while San Francisco saw a 6% increase over the same period.

Beef becomes a rare treat in Texas

For Ada Torres, 60, who lives outside Houston in Cleveland, Texas, and shops and cooks for a household of five that includes her daughter and three grandchildren, ground beef has essentially disappeared from the family's rotation. The price of a pound of ground beef reached $6.82 in June, up 79% from the start of 2019, driven by a shrinking national cattle herd, Western drought conditions, and higher feed and fuel costs. Torres described the shift bluntly, saying, "Prices are sky-high. One hundred dollars' worth of groceries these days is nothing." She's swapped name-brand canned goods for store brands and now relies mainly on chicken and cold cuts for protein, even as she worries about serving her grandchildren too much deli meat. During slower stretches of her daughter's work schedule, the family sometimes manages only one full meal a day.

A Boston-area shopper turns to apps and sales

Outside Boston, Apral Jack, 50, has shifted from regular Whole Foods and wholesale club trips to a more calculated approach built around a deal-tracking app and weekly store circulars. She builds her shopping list around whatever proteins are discounted that week, explaining her strategy simply: "Typically, I'll try to pick the meals based on that." Certain items, including specific cookie brands she considers overpriced, have been cut from her list entirely, and she still avoids store-brand substitutes because she feels they don't taste the same. Industry researchers say Jack's approach reflects a broader trend, with consumers developing increasingly deliberate strategies to manage food budgets under sustained financial pressure, according to Sally Lyons Wyatt, a global executive vice president at market research firm Circana.

Stretching resources across generations in San Francisco

In San Francisco, 33-year-old barber Jack Chang supports a household spanning three generations, including his young children, an unemployed partner and, at times, his mother. Rising costs have hit from multiple directions: his barbershop rent climbed 10% even as he lost clients laid off from tech jobs, and a new car payment has added to his monthly expenses. The family has leaned on federal food assistance and food banks to fill gaps, with his mother visiting two different food banks weekly and sharing what she collects with the rest of the household. Nationally, fewer families have that same safety net available after the Trump administration tightened eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program last year, contributing to a 12% year-over-year drop in enrollment, down to 37 million Americans as of April, according to the USDA.

Hawaii's shipping costs compound the problem

In Hawaii, where nearly all food arrives by cargo ship, rising fuel costs tied to the Middle East conflict have pushed prices even higher than in the mainland U.S. Pastry chef Amanda Tabadero, 28, of Kāneʻohe on Oahu, has largely stopped buying Maui-grown strawberries and blueberries, now priced around $11 a pound compared with under $8 a couple of years ago, opting instead for California or Mexican berries at a warehouse club. She's also given up on locally grown lychee and grown more selective about which stores she shops at, as staple ingredients like milk have climbed to roughly $9 a gallon at some local chains. Reflecting on giving up local products she once relied on, Tabadero said simply, "It makes me sad."

A shift with political stakes

Beyond individual households, the sustained rise in food costs has become a defining economic frustration heading into the fall midterm elections, with affordability emerging as a central talking point across the political spectrum. Economists and market researchers say the coping strategies described by shoppers in Texas, Massachusetts, California and Hawaii reflect a broader national pattern: consumers adjusting brand loyalty, meal planning and shopping locations in real time as they try to keep food budgets manageable amid the steepest sustained grocery inflation the country has experienced in 50 years.