Good to track this yearly since some standard metrics are useless versus the shrinkflation, reduction in quality ingredients, and other manipulation we’ll learn about sooner or later.
Many ice creams are now dairy desserts due to not having enough ingredients to make the cut. Same with milk chocolates and now declared chocolate candy due to not using enough real cocoa.
There's been plenty of volume gaming as costs and prices have risen.
This "basked of goods" approach to understanding price inflation seems outdated to me. 114 items! It seems to me like there must be organizations out there with tons and tons of price and consumer spending data for thousands and thousands of items, right? It should be possible to get much more comprehensive measurement of price changes over time vs and approach taken like this one (or the CPI, for that matter).
There needs to be an index that reflects what people really need and the closest I’ve found is the ALICE index: https://www.unitedforalice.org/essentials-index
My household does care if basic games and toys are cheaper or more expensive; we have kids and want to get some amount of stuff for them. If the price changes we will get more or less of those things since our budget for them is limited. I probably won't fall into abject poverty if some non essential things go up in price, but I also will be buying less which has both personal and broader economic impacts.
There's value in the index you described as well, but IMO it doesn't make sense to use it as the basis for the overall economy.
1/3 of the households make less than $50k. Mean survival budget is $35k-40k. After taxes, if a third of the population can barely meet a survival budget, an index like this needs to be part of the overall economy.
And the point of the ALICE index is exactly to address what you are pointing out. When wages, social security etc. were increasing proportionally to the essential goods, it made sense to have the CPI include other goods and services, allowing policy makers to use it as a basis for policy directions. However, when essentials become expensive faster than non essentials, it creates a problem for policy makers. It explains the “vibeflation” where policy makers were pushing back hard on economic struggles that most people are feeling by pointing to CPI numbers that show a 2-3% inflation, meanwhile people are struggling and dipping into savings to make things work.
We need to have both.
2. This specific exercise is designed to be relatable to individuals (in general, and specifically ones such as the people interviewed in the article who claimed that their grocery bill went up about 50% in a year, which is implausible to put it politely) so that they can understand the actual level of inflation rather than the one they imagined in their head.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pepsico-cut-prices-eliminate-...
(The link is for PepsiCo but we all know that they all raised their prices together and will lower their prices together.)
Supply and demand.
Swai is perhaps the worst possible fish to buy (low nutritional value, bad for environment, contains toxins) so (a) it's unfortunate they picked this fish and (b) it's good it's more expensive since perhaps people will buy less of it.
I think we’ve crossed a line where we can no longer assume basic alignment with “our” leadership.
Except that a president, in normal times, COULD make an impact on inflation, both directly and indirectly.
What is surprising, is that after a completely failed presidency that saw a marked decrease in middle class prosperity, people thought that Donald Trump, of all people, could bring inflation down.
They want democratic socialism.
Meanwhile, the right wing has been telling them that public libraries and public schools and everything good except profit -- is communism.
Yes, though the definition of "reasonable" is a real sticking point
> and tighter regulation of markets
This is less clear to me, but I would agree people want less fraud and deception in markets
> with elimination of profit-taking middlemen
I don't think many people think about this at all, and it's another very nebulous term
> They want democratic socialism.
No, democratic socialists want democratic socialism. Most Americans do not.
> Meanwhile, the right wing has been telling them that public libraries and public schools and everything good except profit -- is communism.
I disagree with basically everything the current incarnation of the Republican party is doing or stands for, and silly statements like this aren't helpful.
People don't "essentially want communism" by advocating for socialist policy. Serious economists will tell you that it is impossible to transition America's free market into a planned economy. We're capitalist through thick and thin.
Yet there is a sizeable number of us who consider seriously promises to "lower prices of X" like it's a thing that can be done by decree. It's disappointing is all.
Exactly, people didn't used to even imagine there was any way to change nor think free-enterprise should be compromised for any special interests, the outcome had always been negative when lobbyists got their way too often with either party.
Remember why Ronald Reagan and the bulk of the American people from both parties absolutely hated Communism so much?
It wan't mainly the economic differences from a free-market system; that barely made it onto the radar and was largely academic.
It was the dictatorship aspect that was so disgusting and anti-American as can be.
Dismal economic considerations under Communist governments were well-recognized as a logical result of dictatorship, that had been obvious for centuries.
Otherwise there wouldn't have been as much ambition for subjects to withdraw from dictator/monarchy regimes and settle in America to begin with.
I think, at least in the last year-or-so, big brands also became worried about getting flamed by the president for raising prices.
It's 100% purely supply side pricing, propped up by government spending and credit (which is largely backstopped by the government as well).
I listened to a podcast recently that some 'homeowners' have not made a mortgage payment in years, have no ability to pay, but here are essentially unlimited 'no doc' mortgage modifications available since the Corona time period.
How? Somebody is holding the bag here on the mortgage - a bank, probably. And they are fine with not receiving payments? Or is somebody else making payments on the homeowner's behalf?
So, the government is making everyone whole.
You don't usually skate by on years of non-payments, so I'd sticker the original claim with [citation needed]
sounds like a very similar thing.
Here's another one on perpetual forbearances: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/covid-housing-relief-forever-rec...
This would seem to indicate that Covid forbearances are extending into 2026: https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/SFH/documents/SFH_FHA_INFO_...
I think they're looking at adding a means test, but I'm unsure.
They're also useful when I need to use a harsh chemical that I don't want lingering on a household cloth my young kids might use on their bodies.
I've had the same roll for around a year, but it's almost exhausted. I think they're fine.
They're also very useful in a lab setting, but that's another matter.
We stopped using toilet paper during covid, got a bidet, and bought a couple hundred shop towels to dry our butts. Now we only buy toilet paper for guests, which happens maybe once a year after throwing several parties.
Then we also bought shop towels for the kitchen to replace paper towels. I love the shop towels so much.
The butt-towels are white, and we wash them with bleach, there's been zero problems doing this over the last ~6 years. If there happens to be a bit of excess poop on a towel (typically there is none at all), we just throw it out, we have hundreds. The kitchen towels are blue, so we don't mix them up with the butt-towels.
We have laundry baskets for each kind of shop towel. A small one in the bathrooms, a larger one in the kitchen for the kitchen towels. We have to wash the butt-towels maybe once a month, and about the same for the kitchen towels. It's a simple chore that takes practically none of our time, less than it would to go out and buy paper. No, the butt-towels do not smell at all, they dry quickly and there's never been any problem whatsoever.
It's so much better than spending multiple $100s of dollars a year on paper that literally gets flushed down the toilet or goes into the trash.
A few of our friends took notice and started doing this too.
Honestly, I don't know why we ever wiped our butts with toilet paper for so many years, it's just so... shitty. It's just not a good experience. When we travel we miss our bidet and shop towels so much, to the point that I've ordered a cheap bidet if I'm staying in an Airbnb for a week or more, and install it there, and leave it behind. $30 well spent.
The numbers show reduced prices for milk and butter (e.g. cream), and sugar remaining constant.
Thus: ice cream is being priced too high.
That's the implication of your comment.
But maybe there are other factors? What about energy? One would assume that ice cream has a higher energy requirement than other "treat" style products? Are there specific tariff impacts on ice cream manufacturing equipment?
Or - Walmart is a big enough supplier that they have stable contracts with manufacturers, and are able to purchase their ingredients for the same cost as always, while Turkey Hill et al is competing over what's left. (Like Apple, buying up TSMC runs.)