These grocery bills are almost as bad as the job market. 'It's a lot for me': Inside the challenge of soaring food costs
Housing and healthcare costs received a lot of the cost-of-living attention in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. More recently, gas prices have captured headlines. But it’s the food costs that people such as Ms. Chan notice every day. As she says, it’s “one expense that is a lot for me.”
Since 2020, overall grocery prices have jumped about 24%, rising even faster than the cost of living, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the last year alone, grocery prices were up an average 2.4% from a year earlier.
In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said food costs could rise by 3.1% in 2026 compared with last year’s grocery bills.
“It wouldn’t surprise me to see some further rise,” Joseph Glauber, a research fellow emeritus of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said at an April 10 news briefing.
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2026/0503/food-prices-rising-affordability-gas-housing?icid=rss