Ms Ellis works full-time as a nurse’s assistant and has a second part-time job.

But she needs to economise. She has switched stores, cut out brand-name items like Dove soap and Stroehmann bread, and all but said goodbye to her favourite Chick-fil-A sandwich.

Still, Ms Ellis has sometimes turned to risky payday loans (short-term borrowing with high interest rates) as she grapples with grocery prices that have surged 25% since Mr Biden entered office in January 2021.

“Prior to inflation,” she says, “I didn’t have any debt, I didn’t have any credit cards, never applied for like a payday loan or any of those things. But since inflation, I needed to do all those things…I’ve had to downgrade my life completely.”

The leap in grocery prices has outpaced the historic 20% rise in living costs that followed the pandemic, squeezing households around the country and fuelling widespread economic and political discontent.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    2 months ago

    also, and I will keep beating this drum, obama had the fed rate at 2.5 about when he left office and trump whined and bullied the fed to bring it to zero just before covid because they where “conspiring” to ruin his economy. fed rates should only be lowered when there is cause (like a pandemic) and not because he want stock market to go burr. idealy its raised and lowered slowly but because trump pushed it unnaturally low we had to have the sudden big jumps under biden.