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Sh*t Costs Too Much — a project of Defend America Action
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Data TrackerGroceries

What Families Actually Pay: Grocery Basket Tracker

A monthly look at the real cost of a week's groceries across metro and rural markets.

Download the ReportUpdated monthly · PDF + CSV
Data Tracker

What Families Actually Pay.

Updated monthly · PDF + CSV

The topline

+31%

Cost of a basic weekly basket since 2019

$1,100

Added to the average family's yearly grocery bill

0

Real wage growth keeping pace, in most states

A monthly look at the real cost of a week's groceries across metro and rural markets. This data tracker pulls together what families across the country are actually paying — and lays out where the system is failing them.

The squeeze on groceries isn’t an accident or a force of nature. It’s the product of specific choices about how our economy works and who it works for. Understand the choices, and you can change them.

What we found

  • Staples — eggs, bread, milk, cooking oil — drove the steepest increases.
  • Rural markets saw the sharpest jumps, with fewer competing stores nearby.
  • "Shrinkflation" hid part of the increase: smaller packages at the same price.

Same cart, same list, forty bucks more than a year ago. It adds up fast when you're already stretched.

— Marcus B., Atlanta GA

Methodology: figures shown are illustrative sample data for this design mockup. The published report draws on public price indexes, wage data, and first-hand accounts collected from families across all 50 states.

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