A year into President Trump's second term, the grocery checkout line is telling a very different story than the one coming from the White House. While Trump told a Detroit crowd this week that "grocery prices are starting to go rapidly down," federal data released the same day show the cost of food at home is still climbing—and at the fastest monthly pace in years, the New York Times reports. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, supermarket prices rose 2.4% over the past year and 0.7% in December, the sharpest monthly jump since October 2022. Dining out costs rose by about the same amount last month, the biggest monthly jump since 2022, per Axios.
Some staples have surged far more: beef is up 16.4% from a year ago, coffee nearly 20%, lettuce 7.3%, and frozen fish 8.6%. Ground beef hit a record $6.69 a pound in December; it was $5.61 a year prior. Eggs are a rare bright spot, down about 21%, and many dairy prices have slipped—but five of six major grocery categories are higher, and overall food prices are now almost 26% above where they were five years ago. NPR has tracked Walmart grocery prices at a Georgia location since 2018, and reports that on average, prices of the staples they track went up 5% over the past year.
Experts say there's no single culprit. Weather, fertilizer, machinery, fuel, and shifting consumer tastes all play a role, while a yearslong drop in cattle herds is keeping beef prices elevated. Trump's own policies are also in the mix: tariffs have made imported items like coffee, bananas, and some tropical produce more expensive and pushed up the cost of packaging materials such as aluminum. Immigration crackdowns have also tightened farm labor in some regions, forcing crops to rot in fields in some states.
Low-income shoppers are feeling the increases first and hardest, especially those who temporarily lost SNAP benefits during last year's government shutdown. Grocery executives say many are trading steak for ground beef, stocking up less, shifting to store brands, and chasing promotions—and they're now seeing similar behavior from middle-income households. With the Agriculture Department expecting roughly similar grocery inflation again next year, Democrats are leaning into affordability ahead of November's midterms, arguing that Republicans presiding over still-rising food costs can't credibly claim victory over inflation. As Axios reports, "broad inflation relief is little consolation for Americans if they aren't seeing it reflected in grocery bills."
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