By Ben Popken - NBC News
You'd better start budgeting more for your grocery bills, based on the latest consumer price index, as costs are increasing and likely to continue to rise.
The index, released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed a
0.6% rise in March
, the largest monthly increase in nearly a decade.
In the last year, prices have risen 2.6% in total.
Gasoline jumped 9.1% last month.
Since February, fruits and vegetables have risen almost 2%, and meat, fish and eggs have risen 0.4%, according to government figures.
The latest spike in food bills is because
prices had already risen during the pandemic
last year due to supply chain disruptions, and never fell.
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"We used to buy these things for $ 30. Now they cost $ 60," John Kermaj commented outside a supermarket in Long Island, New York.
This citizen has tried to adapt when shopping for his family by buying only essential items and avoiding brand names, but that also means doing without fresh meat and fish.
"It has to be the pandemic,"
says Kermaj, "the shortage."
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Before the pandemic began, the national average of a pound of bacon in January 2020 was $ 4.72.
Last month, that price had skyrocketed to $ 5.11, according to data from Nielsen IQ supermarket outlets.
Ground beef is up $ 5.26 a pound from $ 5.02.
Bread is up $ 2.66 a loaf from $ 2.44.
The increases are more noticeable in some areas of the country
.
In Boston and Philadelphia you pay almost a dollar more per pound of bacon, while in Chicago the increase is about 70 cents.
In Dallas, there are increases of more than 5% in several items at the same time, such as eggs, chicken breast, fresh ground meat and sandwich bread.
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Checkout changes are also putting pressure on supermarkets' profit margins.
Manufacturers have cut promotions and coupons to moderate demand since the restocking period in March last year.
"In a typical month,
31.5% of units are sold on promotion
; in the most recent period of March, 28.6% of units were sold on promotion," said Phil Tedesco, vice president of Retail Intelligent Analytics. at Nielsen.
"This has resulted in shoppers having fewer opportunities to take advantage of in-store sales," increasing total costs, he added.
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Economists say costs from rising gasoline prices,
rebounding commodity prices
, rising imports from China, severe damage to crops in the Midwest and other factors are being carried over to. the consumers.
"Supply chains are largely inefficient right now," said Isaac Olvera, an economist at ArrowStream, a supply chain management software company.
"We are still dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic," he added.
Issues such as
the increase in gasoline prices
, the increase in transport costs passed on to consumers, especially in the case of items such as bread, only increase, since driving increases faster than driving. oil production.
So food prices are likely to remain at the higher end of estimates at least for the rest of the year, Olvera said.
Producers may end up increasing their production to capture increased demand, but that won't happen until the end of this year, Olvera said.
The White House said Monday that it expects inflation to go up, not down.
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There are
three temporary factors driving the increase
, wrote Jared Bernstein and Ernie Tedeschi, members of President Joe Biden's Council of Economic Advisers: The rate of increase appears faster when it rises from a lower level, supply chain disruptions and the repressed demand for services.
"We believe that the most likely outlook for the next few months is
for inflation to rise modestly,
and return to a lower rate thereafter, as real inflation begins to be more in line with long-term expectations." they wrote, moving from "historically low levels to more normal levels."
Rising prices can fuel food insecurity at a time when more than nine million people are still out of work.
Pennies can add up, week to week, family to family.
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"Food is a necessity,"
says Jayson Lusk, an economist at Purdue University, "Lower-income households spend more of their income on food. When we see food prices rise, this affects more lower income households. "
Budget-conscious shoppers can try some always-true tips to lower their bills, said Amy Keating, a registered dietitian for Consumer Reports, a nonprofit publisher and consumer watchdog.
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Keating recommends
signing up for a coupon app
like Flipp, or a price comparison app like Basket, which also includes online pricing.
Take photos of items with their prices to help you remember what the average prices are, especially for more expensive items like olive oil and nuts.
And if the price tag doesn't show the unit price, use your phone's calculator.
Classic tips still work, such as
shopping based on a list only
to avoid impulse purchases, opting for store brands or generic if they are cheaper, and swapping more expensive meats for cheaper cuts, or reducing the amount of chicken or beans.
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"We have to be a little more flexible if some of our favorites have gotten expensive," Keating said.
Outside of the Long Island supermarket, shopper Joanne Budhu said her family is adjusting their meals based on what they can buy at the store.
"We are not big meat eaters in our family," Budhu said, but noted that prices for dairy products have risen.
"
So we try to cut back,
" he said, "we try to go to different recipes and substitute, and not cook so many things that would be expensive."
