The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor in America

Re:The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor i... by qbasic_forever on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @11:18PM (#34076572)

You clearly haven't bought eggs, beans, rice, etc. at the grocery store and been on a budget. In the last two years the price of eggs have easily doubled--a dozen large store brand eggs are over 3 bucks now vs maybe 99 cents pre-pandemic. Every single staple you mention has gone up in price significantly. Food inflation is astronomical and if you don't feel it then it's quite a privilege. If you were struggling to make ends meet two years ago, you are in deep deep trouble or probably completely forgotten by society and/or dead now.

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Re:The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor i... by LAC-Tech on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @11:30PM (#34076664)

In the last two years the price of eggs have easily doubled--a dozen large store brand eggs are over 3 bucks now vs maybe 99 cents pre-pandemic.

Food in the US is insanely cheap. Wow.

$4.78 USD at the cheapest store here, and this is on special.

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Re:The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor i... by aix1 on Wednesday December 21, 2022 @01:05AM (#34077254)

> $4.78 USD at the cheapest store here, and this is on special.

I was about to say that this is roughly what supermarket eggs cost here in Switzerland but then realised that your price was for a dozen and I was thinking a box of six.

Eggs here are often sold in units of one (you fill your own box with however many eggs you need) and cost about US$0.80 per egg.

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Re:The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor i... by senectus1 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @11:41PM (#34076735)

eggs are pretty much immune from shrinkflation as well.

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Re:The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor i... by jraby3 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @11:34PM (#34076692)

$0.25 per egg is still a great value in terms of health and satiety.

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Re:The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor i... by qbasic_forever on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @11:43PM (#34076740)

No, it's not. Dried beans, rice and potatoes are a better value. Eggs are damn luxury now at 25 cents a pop.

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Re:The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor i... by dikei on Wednesday December 21, 2022 @12:35AM (#34077063)

You need a balance diet: beans, rice and potatoes are good for carbs/energy, but lacking in lipid, protein and vitamin. For a cheap meal, the majority of it should be carbs, but adding 1-2 egg improve it a lot.

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Re:The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor i... by oska on Wednesday December 21, 2022 @05:19AM (#34078823)

Many Asian cuisines (that have fed ppl who have been very poor) feature a dish that is a beaten raw egg mixed through rice (the hot rice then cooks the egg a little). Rice & beans etc are good staples but the experience of extremely poor people that is reflected in these cuisines is that it's good and worthwhile to add some extra good quality ingredients to these staples.

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Re:The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor i... by mikeyouse on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @11:26PM (#34076629)

There are unfortunately a bunch of factors that added up to this.. e.g. for Eggs, there's just normal food inflation, but then there's a massive avian flu outbreak that resulted in ~50 million birds culled in the US alone. It doesn't help but either way, prices are indeed up ~100% since pre-pandemic (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000708111).

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/11/22/23472207/bird-...

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Re:The Cost of Being Poor: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor i... by jldugger on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @11:45PM (#34076755)

> You clearly haven't bought eggs, beans, rice, etc. at the grocery store and been on a budget.

Food inflation is real but not experienced the same way by many Americans who consume mostly processed foods, which are less vulnerable to commodities shocks. So I can't be too surprised the HN crowd hasn't noticed. But eggs are apparently specially fucked[1] due to an avian flu outbreak, so you're kinda cherry picking. Cherries btw, have seemingly doubled in price, but pre-pandemic was the cheapest they'd ever been in the past 30 years.[2]

More importantly, I think you're missing the point the article and OP were making: dollar store supply chains for these goods suck compared to grocery stores that are optimized for this. Whatever inflation has done to raw goods is amplified at these small dollar stores.

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/11/why-egg-prices-are-surging-b... [2]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU01110203

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