Food Prices Skyrocketing Since 2011 While Wages Stagnant

CBS News reports that the combination of food prices being inflated and the stagnation of wages is threatening the middle class. 

The report noted that staples such as chicken, ground beef, and bacon have skyrocketed in price since 2011: the price of chicken is 18.4% more than it was; ground beef is up 16.8%; and bacon saw a huge increase of 22.8% in price. These price hikes came despite the federal government’s sunny assertion that prices in general have only increased 6.4% in that period.

Meanwhile, median income has only risen 1% each year, while the cost of college tuition has climbed 6% to 8% every year for at least forty years.   

ConvergEx market strategist Nick Colas commented, “Food inflation is far greater than the government thinks it is. The disconnect is severe, because it’s the economists that make policy but it’s the people who have to live with the outcome of that policy and that disconnect is growing to the point where I think it has to break soon.”