October 26, 2026 | Rogé Karma
The Atlantic: The Real Culprit Behind High Grocery Prices
“Although neither farmers nor grocers make very much money, many of the middlemen who operate between them make plenty of it.
“Voters have consistently cited the cost of groceries as their top economic concern—and it isn’t hard to understand why. From 2015 to 2019, the average worker’s wages grew about 30 times faster than the price of groceries. Then came the pandemic. From 2021 through the end of last year, grocery prices increased faster than both overall inflation and wages. Today, the cost of food is about 30 percent higher than it was in January 2020.
“Unfortunately, most ideas in circulation for how to bring down grocery costs, such as city-run grocery stores and price controls, would hardly make a dent in the issue. But a new think tank called the Kitchen Table Project, run by a group of left-leaning economists and policy wonks, is floating a more direct intervention: a public option for food purchasing.”