A new survey has surfaced recently that may shock you. Or at least confirm what you suspected. A majority – as many as 4 out of 5 – Americans say food is no longer affordable. Time for government action?
Donald Trump – then candidate Trump – held a news conference on high food
prices outside his Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey, in August, 2024.
He made bold promises, but has failed to follow through on any…
A poll for The Washington Post by Ipsos, published July 16, reveals that, “About two-thirds, or 66 per-cent, of Americans say they would describe the cost of groceries as unaffordable, up sharply from the 45 percent who said the same thing in February before the [Iran] conflict started.”
Most vulnerable hit hardest
But there’s another, darker dimension to the poll’s findings: “Even among households earning more than $100,000 annually, a majority – 56 percent – say grocery prices are unaffordable. That figure ris-es to 70 percent among households making between $50,000 and $100,000, and reaches 82 percent for households earning less than $50,000.”
Along Party lines
There’s also a decided split along party lines among American grocery shoppers. While half of Repub-lican voters polled said they felt food prices were affordable, only 25 percent of those who said they vote Democrat or Independent agreed.
I wonder if the reason so many Republicans say groceries are still affordable is that they are simply toeing the party (Trump’s) line? Or are even ground-floor Republicans making out like bandits, fin-ancially, under the Trump regime?
Looks bad on Reps
The poll results look bad for Republicans, many of whose Congress Members and Senators are stand-ing for reelection this fall. And if they’re looking for someone to blame, they need look no farther than their fearless leader. President Trump promised voters during the 2024 elction campaign that he would bring food prices down:
“I won on groceries. Very simple word, groceries. Like almost — you know, who uses the word? I start-ed using the word — the groceries,” Trump said in an interview in December of 2024. “When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that.”
“We’re going to bring those prices way down,” he added.
Since then, he’s done nothing to bring down the price of groceries. And he’s often seemed unaware, of the state of the food price crisis when challenged on that point by reporters.
My take
Canada’s federal Competition Bureau recently announced it’s opening an investigation into persistent high food prices in our country. It’s about time. And this time – unlike the fizzle consumers felt when the new Grocery Code of Conduct came into force – it appears that the government is finally ready to point fingers and name names in the fight to tame food prices!
It’s past time for such a probe in the US. But it looks as though Americans will have to wait until Trump is out of office – at least 2 and a half more years – before that has any chance of happening…
~ Maggie J.