Food bought for home use in U.S. cities costs 33% more than in early 2019—the biggest grocery-price jump in 50 years—pushing households to plan meals around sales, split trips across stores and drop favorite items.
Ground beef reached $6.82 a pound in June, up 79% from 2019, illustrating how pandemic disruptions, labor and transport costs, drought, bird flu, tariffs, and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have compounded food inflation.
Lower-income families are under the most strain: Americans spent 12.9% of pretax income on food in 2024 on average, but the lowest-earning fifth spent 33%, while some households reported relying on one full meal a day.
Regional pressures vary, with June at-home food prices up 6% in San Francisco versus 2% in St. Louis; in Hawaii, shipping costs tied to fuel spikes have made local staples and milk notably harder to afford.
Wages for full-time workers have risen slightly faster than grocery costs since 2019, but higher housing and utility bills—and a 12% drop in SNAP enrollment to 37 million after tighter eligibility rules—have kept affordability central in the fall midterms.