Sh*t Costs Too Much: Groceries
Grocery prices keep climbing while the government carries out the deepest cut to food assistance in SNAP’s history and the war in Iran drives up the cost of food production.
Sh*t Costs Too Much.
Fact sheet · July 2026
4.5M+
People who have lost SNAP food assistance since last year’s tax bill
$187B
Cut from food assistance — the deepest in SNAP’s history
51%
Of Americans say they’re having trouble affording groceries
Hard-working Americans are paying more for everything these days — especially at the grocery store. Price tags are through the roof, and paychecks aren’t keeping pace. The war in Iran drove up the fuel and fertilizer costs that move food from the field to the shelf, and the federal government is carrying out the deepest cut to food assistance in the program’s history. For millions of families, making ends meet has gone from hard to impossible, and putting dinner on the table increasingly means putting groceries on a credit card.
Key points
- Groceries are up more than 4% since January 2025.
- Fruits and vegetables alone are rising faster than inflation overall and wages, up 5.3% over the past year alone.
- At least 1.5 million kids have lost access to SNAP food assistance thanks to last year’s massive tax bill cutting nearly $200 billion from the program.
- More than 4.5 million people have lost SNAP food assistance since the passage of last year’s massive tax bill, with SNAP enrollment dropping in all but one state.
- 51% of Americans now say they are having trouble affording groceries, and around two-thirds say they would describe the cost of groceries as unaffordable.
- 61% of Americans said they had to cut back on groceries.
Core drivers
The government ripped away nearly $200 billion in food assistance
Last year, the federal government ripped away $187 billion in funding for food assistance. Since the passage of this law, more than 4.5 million people overall have lost access to SNAP, including at least 1.5 million kids. This marks the steepest drop in the program in nearly three decades, and the deepest cut in SNAP’s history.
War with Iran is driving up the cost of food production
At the end of February, the U.S. launched strikes against Iran, sparking a war that has shuttered the Strait of Hormuz, sending prices through the roof for diesel and fertilizer. About two-thirds of farmers said they could not afford all the fertilizer they needed for 2026, and high costs for farmers translate to higher prices for shoppers.
Every figure here is sourced and linked to public reporting, government data, and independent analysis.
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