Sticker shock at the grocery store should be slowing down, according to recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But with grocery prices still up 28% since 2019, presidential candidates former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are making high food costs a campaign issue.
“[The Biden administration] had the highest inflation,” Trump said during the debate on Tuesday. “It’s the worst period, people can’t go out and buy cereal or bacon or eggs or anything else.”
Later in the debate, Harris also brought up food costs.
“It is important that we move forward, that we turn the page on this same old, tired rhetoric,” Harris said. “We need to address the needs of the American people; address bringing down the price of groceries.”
Pocketbook issues are extremely important and motivating for voters, according to Donna Hoffman, a political science professor at the University of Northern Iowa.
“If their pocketbook is being hit by high gas prices or high food prices, those are certainly things that can work their way into the things the presidential campaigns want to address,” she said. “Above everything else, candidates want to convey to voters that they’re empathetic and they understand the concerns of the average American.”
More than 80% of registered voters told Pew Research that the economy will be very important to their vote in the 2024 presidential election.
That’s despite inflation leveling off. The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed overall inflation fell in August to its lowest level since February 2021.
Maria Kalaitzandonakes said the relief is not necessarily translating to happy shoppers. She’s a professor in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics.
“When economists think about inflation, we think about the rate of increases in prices,” she said. “But when consumers think about inflation, it’s more like ‘In 2019 I could buy all my groceries for less than $100 and now when I go to the grocery store I’m getting sticker shock.’ It’s not the same concept.”
Ability to address food prices
Kalaitzandonakes’ research found that most consumers do believe political parties can help lower food prices. Along with a team, she asked consumers “Which political party, if any, do you think can help to lower food prices in grocery stores?” in an online survey.
A majority of respondents thought their political party could address high food prices. Among the findings:
- 74.2% of Republicans thought only Republicans could help push down food prices.
- 61.8% of Democrats thought only Democrats could lower grocery costs.
- Less than 5% of Republicans and 8% of Democrats said they did not think any party could help push down prices.
- More respondents who identified as Independent or as something other than the two main political parties doubted about any candidate’s ability to impact food prices. (29.2%)
- Individuals identifying as Independent/Other were more likely to say combined efforts from Republican and Democrats would be necessary to lower food prices. (46.1%)
- Participants who identified as one of the two main parties (27.4% of Democratic respondents and 18.4% of Republican respondents) thought combined efforts would be necessary.
“I expected the partisanship, but I was expecting more pessimism than we saw,” Kalaitzandonakes said. “The vast majority across political parties thought their party could help bring food prices down at the grocery store.”
That expectation is a misperception, according to Hoffman.
“Presidents can do very little to directly manipulate the price for a gallon of milk,” the political professor said. “Voters often ascribe magical powers to presidents, but we don’t give them wands to wave to make prices go down or make the economy better. If we did that, we would always have a great economy.”
A limited ability to address grocery prices is not stopping the candidates from suggesting proposals.
Harris has argued corporate greed is to blame for high food prices and called for a federal ban on price gouging on groceries during an August speech laying out her economic priorities.
Meanwhile, Hoffman said Trump hasn’t offered a clear plan to address grocery prices.
“He really just kind of beats a drum that America is awful now and food prices are awful,” she said. “He does talk a lot about bacon, but he doesn’t give a concrete proposal on how he’s going to affect it.”
Hoffman said Trump’s most consistent policies – launching “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” and imposing tariffs on imported foreign goods – would likely cause food prices to go up.
She expects candidates to continue mentioning food prices in the months leading up to the November election.
“What voters want is someone to hear them, to address their concerns and to at least give them a fig leaf of policies that they would do,” Hoffman said. “These concerns aren’t going to magically go away in the next month and a half. And this is an emotional issue, which is really the thing that sways voters and gets them to the polls.”
Food insecurity rises
High food prices are one part of what’s driving up food insecurity for U.S. families, according to Salaam Bhatti, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program director at the Food Research & Action Center.
A report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on household food security found that 13.5% of households were food insecure at some point in 2023, up from 12.8% in 2022.
The increase wasn’t a surprise to Bhatti.
“We could see the writing on the wall,” he said. “We have inflation at the grocery stores and we saw the rollback of critical COVID-19 pandemic relief efforts like boosts to SNAP, free school meals and the expansion of the child tax credit. Once all of those things went away, we saw the return of that food insecurity level.”
Bhatti is hoping that the data can help the pitch for stronger food assistance in the overdue farm bill negotiations.
Republicans in the House have suggested placing limits on how SNAP benefits are calculated, which would cut SNAP by $30 billion over the next 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
“When you're seeing food insecurity increasing, there is no reason to cut funding from SNAP,” Bhatti said. “I think the food insecurity numbers that we saw are going to help us advocate for a stronger SNAP program through the farm bill.”
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
