foodbank
© Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesFILE: The trust revealed that during the fist six months of the pandemic it distributed 1.2m food parcels, of which 470,000 went to families with children.
According to a new poll from a D.C-based nonprofit No Kid Hungry, the number of Texans negatively affected by grocery store prices continues to increase, with a vast majority (81%) reporting that food costs are outpacing their incomes, and around half (49%) revealing that they've either cut back on meat consumption, or given it up altogether to remain in budget.

The second statistic is exaggerated among lower-income families making less than $50k, with children in the public school system, where it goes from around one-out-of-two to almost three-out-of-four (71%).


Comment: And it's likely that the protein they were consuming was of a considerably poor quality already. At times like these, people will resort to even cheaper sources, like eggs - which not long ago were also soaring in price, and in part because of all the suspect food plant fires: Jan 2024: Fire tears through huge egg farm in Texas


These survey results echo an earlier poll, conducted this past spring in New York, where almost nine-out-of-ten (85%) respondents said food prices were accelerating past their incomes; I actually wrote a blog I on that at the time and funny enough, I included a graphic from a data analyst who had assembled the map below, arguing that the lower cost of food seen in Texas (compared to the rest of the nation), was an "advertisement" for the state.

How rapidly things deteriorate under progressive Democrats! This was literally less than six months ago.

Let me just be clear for anyone who doesn't already understand the root of the issue and may be new to American Thinker; this isn't a "price-gouging" problem, and government-decreed price controls are not the solution. Grocery stores operate on a very small net profit margin, usually between one and two percent. That means if you buy a bag of potato chips for $5, after the cost paid by the store to the distributor... the cost of product transport from warehouse to shelf... the portion of each product that pays for the overhead costs like employees, the store itself, maintenance and utilities... the various taxes paid by the store... the cost of debit and credit transactions... the store made a whopping ten cents on the sale, best case scenario at a 2% profit. At a 1% profit? A whole nickel.


Comment: That may, or may not, be true, because over in the UK the supermarkets are not only making bumper profits, but they're also putting producers out of business by refusing them to pay the cost of production.


What do you think would happen were Kamala to take control at the White House, and tell grocery stores that the bag of chips that costs them between $4.90 and $4.95, can only be sold for $3? Is that grocery story going to stock its shelves as a massive loss?


The problem is a government that keeps spending money it doesn't have, printing dollars out of thin air โ€” this destroys the purchasing power of the dollar, and things cost more and more because the dollar is worth less and less.


Comment: More importantly there's the anti-Russia, and China, sanctions, and the unnecessary and exceptionally dangerous, and expensive, warfronts in Ukraine, China, and Palestine, and its unwavering support for Israel's Gaza genocide.


We Americans are largely stuck on the dollars owned by the Federal Reserve, so when they implement bad policy that makes the cost of living increase, it affects the poor and middle classes to a greater degree than those at the top of the socioeconomic ladder.

You know who's not fretting about food prices though? The illegals who have more than $10,000 in food stamp dollars on their "magic money cards," or the Haitian migrants who can apparently just shop for food around their neighbor's backyard, an alley, the local pound, or the park down the street.