U.S. grocery prices have risen 33% since the start of 2019, the steepest increase in 50 years, according to government figures, while separate U.S. Department of Agriculture data show enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program fell 12% over the past year following the Trump administration's tightening of eligibility rules.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that a pound of ground beef reached $6.82 in June, 79% above its price at the start of 2019, a rise linked in part to a shrinking national cattle herd, drought conditions and higher feed and fuel costs. In the seven and a half years before 2019, food prices had risen just 6.4%, according to government figures. Market research firm NielsenIQ has recorded falling demand for ground beef as a result.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data also show average weekly earnings for full-time workers have risen slightly faster than grocery costs since 2019, though separate consumer price index figures show the burden varies by region: food-at-home costs in St. Louis were up 2% year-on-year in June, against 6% in San Francisco. U.S. Department of Agriculture figures show households spent an average of 12.9% of pretax income on food in 2024, rising to 33% for the lowest-earning fifth of households.
As of April, 37 million Americans were enrolled in SNAP, the Department of Agriculture said, a 12% decline from a year earlier following the Trump administration's tightened eligibility rules. The reduction narrows a support mechanism for lower-income households at a time when Department of Agriculture data already show food costs consuming a disproportionate share of their budgets.
Jared Bernstein, a senior policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy who previously chaired the Council of Economic Advisers, has said wage growth outpaced grocery inflation more clearly before the pandemic, and that even a modest current margin in workers' favor can be offset by simultaneous increases in housing and utility costs. Sally Lyons Wyatt, a global executive vice president at Circana, has described consumers as actively adapting their shopping behaviour to sustained financial pressure. Matt Hamory, who leads the global grocery practice at AlixPartners, has said shoppers typically hold a fixed weekly food budget and will shift toward cheaper retailers or split purchases across multiple stores once prices exceed it.
The combination of sustained cost inflation, tracked through Bureau of Labor Statistics and consumer price index data, and a smaller pool of SNAP-eligible households following the Department of Agriculture's enrollment figures, is a variable consumer-facing food retailers must factor into revenue and pricing forecasts. Regionally uneven cost pass-through, evident in the gap between the St. Louis and San Francisco price data, adds a further complication to those planning assumptions while the underlying inflation and enrollment trends persist.
