Grocery Prices Decline

The latest CPI release indicates a decline in food-at-home prices.

Figure 1: CPI (bold black), and food at home component (light blue), and ERS January forecast (blue square), all in logs, 2021M01=0. Source: BLS, ERS, and author’s calculations.

At the national level, the food at home component has been dropping for three months now. The USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) forecast for end-of-year CPI has consequently declined slightly.

A similar pattern of food price deceleration has occurred in the East North Central region (which encompasses Wisconsin).

Figure 2: East North Central CPI (bold black), and East North Central food at home component (light blue), all in logs, 2021M01=0. Series seasonally adjusted by author using X-13 (log transform on level). Source: BLS, and author’s calculations.

However, because the subregion’s overall CPI has not risen as much as its national counterpart, the food-at-home/overall gap remains wider here.

 

 

 

6 thoughts on “Grocery Prices Decline

  1. Moses Herzog

    I may be shopping at a HyVee sometime this early summer, for the first time in literally decades. So this is good news for me. Does anyone know if they still serve breakfast?? I bet they don’t cut the meats up as well as they used to. Tenderloins etc. Oh well, I’ll most likely be getting my breakfast “free” as part of my $80–$100 motel bill. And you know Uncle Moses is gonna try to eat his $90 per night bill back. Ice for my sodie pops. I’ll load up on coffee right when I hit the exit. Bet they don’t even have newspapers nearby unless there’s an above average gas station nearby. Used to sometimes be able to get a free hardcopy newspaper in the lobby “back in the day” if you could make friends with the register receptionist. Not any more…….crumb bums. [sigh….. getting old]

    Both my maternal and paternal grandads worked at Swift meat packing plant (and my Dad for a very short summer stint). Now it’s owned by Brazil. Crock of sh*t.

  2. Moses Herzog

    Reading the funnies in a small town newspaper I picked up roughly a week ago. Picture of two middle aged guys sitting on a park bench. One of them reading a newspaper. He says to the other guy who’s just looking off into the distance, “What do ‘masochism’ and ‘amnesia’ mean?” He replies “Beats me. I forget.”

  3. pgl

    But Bruce Hall is mad he paid more for that crudité platter than his mommy paid for a vegetable platter last month. AND filet mignon cost more than those chopped steaks Trump served to his Big Oil buddies.

    1. Moses Herzog

      How dare you bring Dr. Oz into this!!!!!
      “You Won’t Believe What Happens When You Microwave These 5 Things!” and “Looking For A Sciatica Pain Solution That Doesn’t Involve Pills?”

      “It took Columbia far too long to remove Oz from its otherwise distinguished medical faculty,” Henry Miller, MD, of the Pacific Research Institute in California, told MedPage Today via email.

      Miller stressed that “the ‘Oz controversy’ was never about free speech. It was about an unethical grifter whose claims and pronouncements were not supported by science, and were injurious to consumers — in the interest of financial benefit to Oz himself. That constitutes professional misconduct.”

      Besser charged that Oz’s science was shoddy because he reported total arsenic rather than the breakdown between organic and inorganic arsenic — only the latter of which is known to be toxic. Even the FDA sent the show a letter before the segment aired saying it would be “irresponsible and misleading” to report the results.

      Oz again broke with medical science during the pandemic when he touted hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19, even as evidence mounted that it had no effect on disease course.

      Former President Trump endorsed Oz, touting Oz’s medical and academic credentials in a statement, “He even said that I was in extraordinary health, which made me like him even more.”

      I tell yeh, next they’ll be coming after the ethics and integrity of the great Oprah Winfrey. Could Dr. Oz be bribing Oprah’s silence with endless crudité platters?? (unlikely, Oprah has had a persistent battle against life-threatening allergies to veggies). Meanwhile, Oprah advises staying away from the apple juice.
      https://images.app.goo.gl/6CLcexExHKPSteki6

  4. Moses Herzog

    “this man (Hendrix) was in the 101st Airborne” It’s so hard to listen to that and imagine it never registerd with the audience. It hurts deep Menzie.

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