America's Talking - Food Prices Expected to Rise Through 2024

Episode Date: September 2, 2023

Recently released federal pricing analysis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that food prices will continue to rise through 2024. The USDA pointed to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index released earlier this month, which showed consumer prices overall rose 3.2% in the previous twelve months. Food prices, though rose more quickly at 4.9% during the same time. Now, USDA says that increase will continue. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to American Focus. I'm Cole McNeely, filling in for Dan McAlebe this week. Joining me, as he does Dan every week, is the Center Squares, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper, Casey, it is a great honor and pleasure to be able to speak with you. Cole, honor of a lifetime. Thank you for this great opportunity. I hope that I can prove myself worthy. I hope when I am done with my days here on Earth, the first line will say, once filled in as a guest, co-hosts on America and Focus with Casey Harper. I mean, that's how monumental of the day this is for me. Well, literally monumental if it's your gravestone. Truly monumental. Casey, we are recording this podcast on September 1st. And, you know, more bad news coming out this week. Food prices set to rise through 24 or are expected to rise through 2024. What's the context around this? Obviously, inflation has taken a toll on, I think everybody. I think that's fair to say.

in the last couple years here. But what was the impact on food? Yeah, I mean, so food prices have risen really astronomically in recent years. I mean, I would say it's not exact, but once we kind of turn into this next decade of the 2020s, food prices really began to rise. Of course, inflation has, you know, risen significantly. We've talked a lot about this, about that on this podcast and at the cindersquare.com. Of course, it's been kind of a defining feature of President Joe Biden's administration.

he has gotten, you know, inflation has slowed, but it is still rising. And in particular, I believe in 2022, inflation rose like almost 10%, which is incredible, right? And so along with that, food prices have sort of rather food in 2020, inflation did not rise 10%, but food prices rose 20%, 10%. Now, as much as inflation has risen over the recent years, and it has been very significant, food prices have increased even more. Food prices in some years has actually doubled or almost tripled the cost or the rise of inflation. And so anybody who's shopping at the grocery store has seen this, it seems like when you go back, you know, the next week, something, the prices are never the same, right? So the food prices have been soaring even faster than inflation, which has already been its own issue.

And I'll even add on to that, that within food, some goods or some food items are rising. even much faster than the overall rise of food. So certain like, you know, I'm going to seem kind of silly. But if you're buying some kind of cookies or packaged cookies or sweets at the grocery store, those are going to be even more expensive than the overall food cost increase, which may, that itself may have been already like triple inflation. So some of these food price increases are huge. And so now we're looking like, what's going to happen the rest of this year?

inflation has slowed. It's increasing, but it has, it's much less than it was, say, in 2022. And what we see from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is a new analysis that food prices will continue to rise all the way through not just this year, but next year. So no big relief in sight. Your Pop-Tarts, coal, that you're popping every morning, are still very likely going to be in continuing to increase through 2024, whatever you get at the grocery store. And I know you probably eat in Taco Bell every day. So I have bad news for you. The food away from home is also increasing. It's not just the food at the grocery store. Speaking of which, as food prices continue to rise, consumer confidence continues to drop a little bit here.

Directly related to food prices and gas prices. Really, we're talking about the consumer goods that Americans, I mean everybody, right? Not just Americans, but Americans in particular in this case, are purchasing. every week and I mean, and essentials that Americas have to purchase every week to eat. I mean, before we started recording this, I was talking to Casey and I said, all right,

what's the big so what here on the food prices? Is there more to this story? And he goes, well, people need to eat. Yes, right? So people need to eat. So I appreciate that, Casey. And I wanted to give our listeners that insightful analysis.

People need to eat, but also people need to get to their job, right? I mean, these are essential products that people purchase every week and it's causing consumer confidence. to drop. Right. And I think that's one thing I try to highlight a lot in my reporting is there's a narrative that comes out of D.C. about how the economy is doing. And it's usually very politicized and often dishonest. And then there's a narrative that comes out of maybe New York that is based on how the stock market is doing and how global markets are doing that says this is

how the economy is doing. But you know, the president can tell you that inflation rates on this spreadsheet or look a little better. And New York, you know, CNBC can tell you that the stock market's doing great. But if everything in your life is more expensive and your wages haven't gone up, then it doesn't really matter what some of these numbers coming out of these cities say because gas prices have gone up. You know, as we've said, a length here. Food prices are much higher.

And, you know, things like rents, everything has gone up. You're trying to buy a car right now. Good luck. And so it's hitting in this consumer confidence, which has dropped significantly, even amidst this narrative that we've conquered. inflation and we've rebounded from COVID, which to some degree is true. Americans still don't have a lot of confidence in the future of the economy, and they're not optimistic.

And another interesting data point is the US GDP just came out. It's not terrible, but it was revised down to be lower than what was originally said. It was initially said that in quarter two, it was 2.4%. Now it's actually, it was 2.1%. I'll just, I'll throw that in there. but what we're seeing is there are some economic indicators overall that show, you know, things are doing okay, but there can be a disconnect between that and the lived experience of many of our listeners.

And so until we get some of these prices down, I'm not sure people care about stock. I mean, there's a lot of people do care about the stock market, but I think like half of Americans don't have any kind of mutual fund or stocks, right? So it's not always the best measure to just point to stuff like that. I think the macro economic analysis at times can not take into account the human element that, you know, the data point, like you were saying, the data points on the Excel spreadsheets, well, they're not just tallies, right? They're people and they're impacting people.

I think a lot of times that's where the disconnect is. The macro numbers, even if they are improving or are looking good, that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, wages are increasing for all individuals and, you know, keeping up with inflation and then obviously, as you mentioned, the food and gas prices, whether or not the data supports it from like a number standpoint, but from a consumer standpoint, it seems like that economic malaise is still there. And then the cherry on top of all of this is, you know, we mentioned September 1st we're recording this, student loan interest to resume. The consumer might get the belt out and tighten it up here a little bit, especially if you have student

loan debt. So the next couple months here in economic news is going to be interesting. Yeah, I think you're right. And it varies from state. the state and region to region also. I mean, there can be wealth piling up in some urban areas, but totally not, you know, totally being sucked out of rural areas or certain states or even regions. Of course, we've seen some of that in the Midwest.

So, but of course, it's very interesting and we'll be continue covering it, the center square.com and this podcast, the best in America. Cole, didn't you tell me we just passed Joe Rogan for number one podcast? Yeah, no, yeah, no, that's right.

That's what I saw. Yeah, that's what the data says, right? I think that's what the data. Yeah. That was on the GDP report. that? Yeah. I think the Fed put that out, I think. I will say, you know, again, as Casey said, keep up with this at the CenterSquare.com. America's Talking Network, which is the podcast network that produces this podcast and many others has a podcast called Everyday Economics as well with the

president of Franklin News Foundation and publisher of the Center Square, Chris Krug and economist, Dr. Orfei Devungi, where they cover the economic data coming out every week. So if you want to stay up to date, certainly stay up to at CenterSquare.com. And then if you want to get into the weeds of what all these data points mean, check out the everyday economics podcast. Check out that at America's Talking.com. Check out all more of Casey Stories at thecentersquare.com. Please subscribe and thanks for listening to America in Focus.