The measurement and the experience are both correct, which is what makes this so corrosive. Food eaten at home costs about 33 percent more than at the beginning of 2019, and ground beef was $6.82 a pound in June - 79 percent above its level then [1]. In June's CPI, food was up 3.0 percent year over year [3], a modest number stacked on top of that third.
Ada Torres, in Cleveland, Texas, described what that produces at the register: 'One hundred dollars' worth of groceries these days is nothing' [1]. Jack Chang, a self-employed barber in San Francisco, described the other end: 'I look at my credit card every month and I'm like, Wow, how am I going to pay this?' [1] On Oahu, the pastry chef Amanda Tabadero watched Maui berries go from $7.99 a pound in 2024 to $11 now [1].
Economists have a name for why the total never returns: rockets and feathers. Prices rise like a rocket when input costs climb and drift down like a feather, if at all, when they fall. 'There's less competitive force on the feather side of the mountain,' said Jared Bernstein of the Stanford Institute [2].
Food inflation peaked at 11.4 percent in 2022 and stopped rising rather than reversing; the USDA expects another 2.7 percent in 2026, against a 2.6 percent historical average [2].
Some of the increase has a policy address. Fresh tomatoes were up 19.5 percent in June year over year, tied to a 17 percent tariff on Mexican tomatoes [2] - a duty paid by importers and passed to shoppers, which is the plainest available answer to the claim that tariffs are paid by foreigners. Coffee is up 54 percent in US cities since 2019 [2].
The behavioural evidence is in the sales data: store-brand sales reached a record $282.8 billion in 2025 as households traded down [2]. 'I'm hearing inflation has slowed, but things aren't getting any cheaper,' is how Matt Hamory of AlixPartners described the mood [2].
That is not confusion. It is an accurate reading of a rate applied to a base [1][3].
