New Yorkers have been handing over more and more cheddar for their bacon and their bread — NYC has the third highest inflation in the nation, a new study found — and financial experts warn prices could rise even higher.
You could’ve gotten a dozen eggs in the Big Apple for $1.51 back in 2020. Today, those same eggs could run you $6.59, depending on the store. A package of bacon cost $5.58 in 2020 but could set you back nearly $14 today.
Only people living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas and Honolulu, Hawaii, are paying more for goods and services, according to the new report issued by WalletHub.
Detroit follows New York City with the fourth-highest inflation rate nationwide. Boston and the San Bernardino, CA, tied for fifth.
The Post crisscrossed Manhattan this week to hear from shoppers, and they’ve been making sacrifices to offset inflation’s crushing effects.
“I don’t buy meats anymore,” confessed John Malecki, 68, as he exited Key Food in Alphabet City. “I used to buy steaks all the time. But I’ve decided I can live without.
“I was actually just thinking at checkout, ‘My God, these prices are getting so absurd.’ I just bought a little thing of wheat germ for $7. I used to buy this stuff as a teen for $1 … and the container was bigger.”
Several shoppers The Post spoke with said they’ve seen the cost for basic necessities, like eggs, milk, fruits, and bread, rise the most in recent months.
Karl Vandenberg, 25, has been paying up to 30% more for groceries this year. “I see it more with the prices of meats going up,” he said while pushing a cart filled with fruits, spices and mangos through the Wegmans at Astor Place, noting he’s been cutting back on beef and chicken.
“I’ll mostly buy the store brand as opposed to the name brand, which helps out a ton,” Vandenberg said. “There are deals out there if you look for them.”
While she hasn’t had to make many sacrifices, Stadia G. said when she shopped for groceries two years ago, “I would pay $50.” These days, though, “I can’t spend less than $80,” she said, standing outside the Pioneer supermarket on the Upper West Side.
“Whatever you buy now, you pay at least 20% more than you would have a couple of years ago.”
Within the last year, the consumer price index — which measures inflation based off the change in the prices of a basket of goods and services typically purchased by a household — has risen more than 4% in the Big Apple alone, the report reveals.
The national year-over-year inflation rate now sits at 3% — still above the target rate of 2%. And experts don’t see the rate falling another percentage point anytime soon.
“It is worth noting that it has taken nearly two years to lower inflation to the current rate from a high of 9% in June 2022,” said Kailash Khandke, an economics professor at Furman University in South Carolina. “The current inflation could rumble back in if the demand for laborers and workers, particularly in the U.S. economy’s service sector, is not met with a concomitant increase in labor supply.”
Judith Ginzberg, 73, hopes food prices start returning to normal soon. While she works full-time, her partner can’t, she said. So Ginzberg has been getting less but paying more for years.
“Whenever I go grocery shopping, it’s over $100 — even if I’m not getting any protein,” complained Ginzberg, as she was picking up bacon, pasta, salad, beans, and bread at Key Food. “I hate that groceries are unreasonably expensive because of corporate greed, and so I really do try to look for deals when I go to the store.”
Ginzberg said she doesn’t really buy Cheerio’s or even Romaine lettuce anymore, unless she catches them on sale.
Tourists, too, were stunned by the price of groceries in New York.
“I was shocked at how much people have to pay for food here — the pricing is so much more than Canada, it’s mental,” said Canadian tourist Aura Hertzog, 50. “I don’t know how people can pay $8 for strawberries.”
At Wegmans, Michael Kong, 21, said he paid $100 for a week’s worth of groceries, including a pound of organic grapes, rice, and some veggies.
“I’ve been cutting back a lot on snacks and treats,” like candy, chips, and ice cream, explained the newly-employed Kong, a scribe at a nearby CityMD. “I haven’t been buying groceries long, but things have to get better [with inflation], or I’m going to be broke — and hungry.”
To determine which U.S. cities have been most impacted by inflation, WalletHub compared consumer price indexes with recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report comes as inflation figures cooled last month for the first time since the start of the pandemic, when inflation reached a 40-year high.
The latest inflation numbers are stoking renewed speculation the Federal Reserve might soon start cutting interest rates again.