8 ms·
How have prices changed in a year? NPR checked 114 items at Walmart
- robthebrew 9mo ago[flagged]
- kenjackson 9mo agoIt's disappointing, but not surprising, that people thought the president would make any really impact on inflation. That said, with global conditions improving it looks like we could've actually seen a drastically larger reduction in inflation if not for the tariffs. The goals of the tariffs seem so misaligned with what the country needs - again not surprising that we're doing something the opposite of what we need - and again also not surprising that his supporters don't seem to care.
- foobarian 9mo ago[flagged]
- kenjackson 9mo agoHow did you get that from my post? Not wanting consumer tariffs when inflation has been high is pro-communism?
- apercu 9mo agoDon't even bother, it's not a good faith argument.
- dsr_ 9mo agoAsk more widely. People want reasonable services from their government, and tighter regulation of markets, with elimination of profit-taking middlemen. They want democratic socialism. Meanwhile, the right wing has been telling them that public libraries and public schools and everything good except profit -- is communism.
- bpt3 9mo ago> People want reasonable services from their government Yes, though the definition of "reasonable" is a real sticking point > and tighter regulation of markets This is less clear to me, but I would agree people want less fraud and deception in markets > with elimination of profit-taking middlemen I don't think many people think about this at all, and it's another very nebulous term > They want democratic socialism. No, democratic socialists want democratic socialism. Most Americans do not. > Meanwhile, the right wing has been telling them that public libraries and public schools and everything good except profit -- is communism. I disagree with basically everything the current incarnation of the Republican party is doing or stands for, and silly statements like this aren't helpful.
- bigyabai 9mo agoSo... socialism? People don't "essentially want communism" by advocating for socialist policy. Serious economists will tell you that it is impossible to transition America's free market into a planned economy. We're capitalist through thick and thin.
- MarcelOlsz 9mo agoI love when people with 0 capital think they are capitalists. The greatest con pulled on the working class.
- dylan604 9mo agoit's about the dream of being able to have capital though, not actually about having capital. most people do not like the idea of a death tax even though most people will never have enough wealth where it would matter.
- MarcelOlsz 9mo agoYes those people are rubes. "the dream of being able to have capital though", we're agreeing here. That is a pathetic dream. To have & to subjugate.
- fuzzfactor 9mo ago>We're capitalist through thick and thin. Exactly, people didn't used to even imagine there was any way to change nor think free-enterprise should be compromised for any special interests, the outcome had always been negative when lobbyists got their way too often with either party. Remember why Ronald Reagan and the bulk of the American people from both parties absolutely hated Communism so much? It wan't mainly the economic differences from a free-market system; that barely made it onto the radar and was largely academic. It was the dictatorship aspect that was so disgusting and anti-American as can be. Dismal economic considerations under Communist governments were well-recognized as a logical result of dictatorship, that had been obvious for centuries. Otherwise there wouldn't have been as much ambition for subjects to withdraw from dictator/monarchy regimes and settle in America to begin with.
- _factor 9mo agoA weak economy bodes well for cash infused investors as fire sale prices arise. I think we’ve crossed a line where we can no longer assume basic alignment with “our” leadership.
- seiferteric 9mo agoI think the real issue is that for the powers that be, inflation is seen as either neutral or a good thing. The only people it hurts is the working class and the blame is nebulous. So it is used as a tool to increase taxes without changing laws, lower the cost of debt, and cut labor wages since they don't get pay raises commensurate with inflation. So I think it is a trick played upon the working class to screw them over in the long term while the wealthy are protected because all their assets simply go up in value with inflation. I think the target inflation rate should be 0%, not 2%. I simply don't believe the justification for the 2% target.
- trashface 9mo agoWe're well above 2% anyway, I doubt they will ever hit that again - they are already having to cut rates because job market is frozen, and that will increase inflation pressure. I track my spend each year and my personal actual inflation rate has averaged about 4.5% over past 5 years. And I'm pretty low income, my spending is all core stuff.
- NickC25 9mo ago>It's disappointing, but not surprising, that people thought the president would make any really impact on inflation Except that a president, in normal times, COULD make an impact on inflation, both directly and indirectly. What is surprising, is that after a completely failed presidency that saw a marked decrease in middle class prosperity, people thought that Donald Trump, of all people, could bring inflation down.
- cudgy 9mo agoAnd what savior politician should people have thought to elected to bring down inflation?
- chasd00 9mo agoman, i already can't wait for November to be over.
- jrussino 9mo agoThanks to NPR for this important reporting; it sucks that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down after losing all of its funding. This "basked of goods" approach to understanding price inflation seems outdated to me. 114 items! It seems to me like there must be organizations out there with tons and tons of price and consumer spending data for thousands and thousands of items, right? It should be possible to get much more comprehensive measurement of price changes over time vs and approach taken like this one (or the CPI, for that matter).
- bpt3 9mo ago1. It sounds like you're just describing a larger "basket of goods"? That data is available, but also valuable, and I'm not sure why the basket of goods tracked by the CPI or NPR would be inadequate. 2. This specific exercise is designed to be relatable to individuals (in general, and specifically ones such as the people interviewed in the article who claimed that their grocery bill went up about 50% in a year, which is implausible to put it politely) so that they can understand the actual level of inflation rather than the one they imagined in their head.
- darth_avocado 9mo agoI’ve had a gripe with “basket of goods” approach. Does a household really care that much if the game of clue is 10% cheaper in 2025? There needs to be an index that reflects what people really need and the closest I’ve found is the ALICE index: https://www.unitedforalice.org/essentials-index https://www.unitedforalice.org/essentials-index
- eszed 9mo agoI did not know about this, and it's excellent. Seems like a one-shot explanation for the "vibe-flation" phenomenon that many people find mystifying.
- bpt3 9mo agoMost households are able to afford more than the essentials and do care about the cost of entertainment. There's value in the index you described as well, but IMO it doesn't make sense to use it as the basis for the overall economy.
- linuxftw 9mo agoWages and energy have not increased. Tariffs on food are basically non existent for most items. It's 100% purely supply side pricing, propped up by government spending and credit (which is largely backstopped by the government as well). I listened to a podcast recently that some 'homeowners' have not made a mortgage payment in years, have no ability to pay, but here are essentially unlimited 'no doc' mortgage modifications available since the Corona time period.
- tomjakubowski 9mo ago> listened to a podcast recently that some 'homeowners' have not made a mortgage payment in years, have no ability to pay, How? Somebody is holding the bag here on the mortgage - a bank, probably. And they are fine with not receiving payments? Or is somebody else making payments on the homeowner's behalf?
- quietsegfault 9mo agoMortgage foreclosure is a legal process that takes a very long time and is very expensive.
- groby_b 9mo agoBanks are perfectly well equipped to foreclose on you. Ask anybody who was around in 2008. You don't usually skate by on years of non-payments, so I'd sticker the original claim with [citation needed]
- Amezarak 9mo agoDon't know if this is what the OP is referring to, but: https://archive.is/2EObp https://archive.is/2EObp sounds like a very similar thing. Here's another one on perpetual forbearances: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/covid-housing-relief-forever-recovery-mortgage-borrowers-home-buyers-housing-prices-da4e60a2 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/covid-housing-relief-forever-rec... This would seem to indicate that Covid forbearances are extending into 2026: https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/SFH/documents/SFH_FHA_INFO_2025-08.pdf https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/SFH/documents/SFH_FHA_INFO_...
- zeroonetwothree 9mo ago> swai fish fillets from Vietnam (up 34%) Swai is perhaps the worst possible fish to buy (low nutritional value, bad for environment, contains toxins) so (a) it's unfortunate they picked this fish and (b) it's good it's more expensive since perhaps people will buy less of it.
- dsr_ 9mo agoThe article text cites a comment about ice cream becoming unaffordable. The numbers show reduced prices for milk and butter (e.g. cream), and sugar remaining constant. Thus: ice cream is being priced too high.
- jandrese 9mo agoMaybe the milk and butter were local while the ice cream was imported and hit with tariffs?
- giancarlostoro 9mo agoLess than .2% of ice cream is imported.
- quietsegfault 9mo agoFirst, I think you're probably right that ice cream is priced too high compared to its inputs. But maybe there are other factors? What about energy? One would assume that ice cream has a higher energy requirement than other "treat" style products? Are there specific tariff impacts on ice cream manufacturing equipment?
- fwip 9mo agoCould be. But also, ice cream manufacturers buy their ingredients more cheaply than consumers do. It is very possible that the cost of milk/butter/sugar at Walmart reflect Walmart deciding to lower their profit margins on these items, even if the cost to Walmart has increased. Or - Walmart is a big enough supplier that they have stable contracts with manufacturers, and are able to purchase their ingredients for the same cost as always, while Turkey Hill et al is competing over what's left. (Like Apple, buying up TSMC runs.)
- lm28469 9mo agoIf you try it at home you'll realise combining milk, butter and sugar in a bowl doesn't create ice cream. And when you figure out how to create ice cream you'll realise moving said ice cream to a place where you can sell it requires extra steps too
- smallerize 9mo agoAt least Walmart is likely to honor the price on the shelf. Dollar stores often just change prices without updating the shelf, so you don't know what you're going to pay until you get to the register. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/03/customers-pay-more-rising-dollar-store-costs https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/03/customers-pa...
- lavezzi 9mo agoThis is illegal in the UK (and we aren't even talking about the hidden tax surprise at US registers either), unsurprising to see it's normalised in the US.
- senordevnyc 9mo agoI absolutely wish that prices were inclusive of tax in the US, but to be fair, it's not a "hidden tax surprise" to us, since it's been like that everywhere for our entire lives.
- thegreatpeter 9mo agowould be interesting to reveal the holding company behind each brand and what impact they had on products
- instagib 9mo agoThe physical size of charmin changed during the pandemic. Good to track this yearly since some standard metrics are useless versus the shrinkflation, reduction in quality ingredients, and other manipulation we’ll learn about sooner or later. Many ice creams are now dairy desserts due to not having enough ingredients to make the cut. Same with milk chocolates and now declared chocolate candy due to not using enough real cocoa.
- Supermancho 9mo agoI'm not sure if it's a national thing, but Hardees/Carl's Jr Large Cup sizes slowly decreased in volume until they matched the McDonald's Large Cups. There's been plenty of volume gaming as costs and prices have risen.
- brewdad 9mo agoMy favored brand of coffee finally succumbed to the shrinkflation pressures. Most brands in my local grocery store moved to 10oz bags of whole beans. My favorite brand was still 12oz but some of their specialty offerings were in 10oz bags. My last trip, they were all now 10oz bags too. As far as I can tell the bag size itself did not change, only the weighted contents. Read those labels people.
- snake42 9mo agoIn the article it says: To account for possible changes in package sizes, we focused on the price per unit, whether it was an ounce of salsa or a square foot of aluminum foil.
- LeifCarrotson 9mo agoIt doesn't say that they accounted for possible changes in item quality. Tide detergent claims that their new 80-oz bottle of laundry detergent can wash 64 loads just like the previous 100-oz bottle because it's more concentrated, and I suppose NPR (if they'd retained a sample of the previous product) could have brought that to a chemistry lab to test and verify that claim, but I have no idea how you'd objectively prove that an ounce of salsa had truly remained the same product.
- jimt1234 9mo ago> As affordability became Americans' top concern, big brands began to worry about shoppers switching to store-label competitors or skipping some purchases altogether. I think, at least in the last year-or-so, big brands also became worried about getting flamed by the president for raising prices.
- NickC25 9mo agoThe companies that got flamed by 1600 Penn were the ones that raised prices without paying the occupant of 1600 Penn a bribe beforehand.
- arcanemachiner 9mo agoFor the other 96% of the world population: 1600 Penn is a cute slang term referring to the address of the White House, a.k.a the president.
- dwa3592 9mo agoFor the love of god- I can't understand why people buy paper towels. It makes zero sense. It's expensive, you throw it after a use. I started using cloth towels and life is so much better.
- leptons 9mo agoSame here. We stopped using toilet paper during covid, got a bidet, and bought a couple hundred shop towels to dry our butts. Now we only buy toilet paper for guests, which happens maybe once a year after throwing several parties. Then we also bought shop towels for the kitchen to replace paper towels. I love the shop towels so much. The butt-towels are white, and we wash them with bleach, there's been zero problems doing this over the last ~6 years. If there happens to be a bit of excess poop on a towel (typically there is none at all), we just throw it out, we have hundreds. The kitchen towels are blue, so we don't mix them up with the butt-towels. We have laundry baskets for each kind of shop towel. A small one in the bathrooms, a larger one in the kitchen for the kitchen towels. We have to wash the butt-towels maybe once a month, and about the same for the kitchen towels. It's a simple chore that takes practically none of our time, less than it would to go out and buy paper. No, the butt-towels do not smell at all, they dry quickly and there's never been any problem whatsoever. It's so much better than spending multiple $100s of dollars a year on paper that literally gets flushed down the toilet or goes into the trash. A few of our friends took notice and started doing this too. Honestly, I don't know why we ever wiped our butts with toilet paper for so many years, it's just so... shitty. It's just not a good experience. When we travel we miss our bidet and shop towels so much, to the point that I've ordered a cheap bidet if I'm staying in an Airbnb for a week or more, and install it there, and leave it behind. $30 well spent.
- 9mo ago
- amatecha 9mo agoWhat a poorly-built site. There is a cookie banner covering a popover solicitation for donations, covering an inset photo/caption which itself is covered by a cookie banner (wtf?) ... closed the tab.
- steviedotboston 9mo agothe price of name brand soda is outrageous. I remember when it was around a dollar a bottle not long ago, now it's basically 3 dollars a bottle. I can't think of a good explanation for this. It's water and subsidized corn syrup.
- blell 9mo ago>I can't think of a good explanation for this. Supply and demand.
- autoexec 9mo agoI prefer "greed". It's the much a simpler explanation that works just as well. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the demand for soda has stayed the same or even actually declined while the supply of corn and water hasn't bottomed out or gotten proportionately more expensive for soda companies.
- brewdad 9mo agoYou just restated the supply and demand curve with different terms.
- ComputerGuru 9mo agoIt was intentional price gouging, but prices have become to come down after shareholders pressured CEOs to lower the prices in response to tepid sales numbers. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pepsico-cut-prices-eliminate-products-233625050.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pepsico-cut-prices-eliminate-... (The link is for PepsiCo but we all know that they all raised their prices together and will lower their prices together.)
- reincarnate0x14 9mo agoThey're pricing at the point of pain, not maximizing efficiency. There are few enough companies (what, like, 3?) that own the majority of the brands so they don't even need to collude to figure out that they can all hover around "as high as we can get away with" together. I've been nursing a minor Coke Zero addiction for years but usually get the store brand which is close enough at half the cost. For whatever reason Coke Zero itself dropped in price by about 30% recently but that's apparently not nationwide. It really kind of blows my mind how much of that people drink. I'll get a 2 liter bottle that will last days and then I read about people going through entire cases of Mountain Dew Insane Flavor Combo Super Bacinator Blast in a day and it's like my god that's like 4000 kcals of corn syrup.
- jmward01 9mo agoIt would be interesting to see inflation indexes based on different typical buyers, to include the ultra rich. Basically, inflation isn't uniform and impacts people differently. Of course that brings up how you actually measure the impact of inflation to the ultra rich when the price of corn flakes is meaningless and their personal purchase are negligible. Maybe you look at how much the cost to buy a politician has gone up?
- maerF0x0 9mo agoFWIW, a frugal person can't simply think to eat whatever has declined in price... It's worth realizing that, for example, a 20% rise on the 0.33 ramen is still one of your cheapest options. From my perspective (ie, in the USA) it can still be hella cheap if you're willing to cook food yourself from scratch. Rice, Beans, Lentils, and frozen veggies can give you the baseline of very nutritious meals (but boring af) for like $2 a day. you can eat (all dry/unprepared weight) 100g white rice, 100g black beans, 100g black lentils, 225g frozen mixed veggies for about $1 if you buy in small bulk (like 2-5lbs at a time)
- morcus 9mo agoIf you add a few cents of spices a day, I would argue it's not even too boring af and can even arguably be fairly tasty!
- RickS 9mo agoWe're really sorely missing something like "semver for food". I don't have deep food industry knowledge, IIRC there are some rules around SKUs needing to rotate in response to certain changes, but these are completely opaque to customers. People should know they're eating snickers 12.2.2, and while a sub-1% change to one ingredient's amount might be a patch bump, a 10% total weight reduction should absolutely trigger a major version bump. SKU and nutrition labels should be tied to a public changelog, and inaccuracies in that changelog should proportionally imperil manufacturer solvency.
- Night_Thastus 9mo agoThis was really informative! A recent job loss forced me to look harder at my own financials, and I was surprised just how much things like groceries accounts for in overall spending. I'm making a habit this year of, at the end of each day, recording what I spent and on what - so I can get better data. I appreciate what NPR did here. Taking into account price per ounce/square foot/etc is essential so I'm glad they did. It's useful to see these kinds of changes, can help make decisions. If company X is shrinking product Y, maybe it's time to look for an off-brand instead? That's what I'll be doing for a lot of things.
- throw0101d 9mo agoGoing out and checking prices independently of official numbers has been thing for a while: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project Generally peer-reviewed papers have shown the official CPI numbers are fairly accurate.
- trebligdivad 9mo agoI'm surprised the US doesn't try doing chocolate growing in some of it's big empty, hot states.
- watersb 9mo agoIn general, if there's enough water to grow chocolate, then a relatively hot, empty state chooses to build single-family housing developments and five-lane roads. The really empty states lack the water.
- bradhe 9mo agoCue outrage from the conservative administration for checks notes quality journalism.
- irthomasthomas 9mo agoI love this quote from Walmart describing loss leaders turned inside out. A store, for example, might ... charge slightly more for several items in order to sell something else at a break-even price or even below cost. Imagine, Alice: "I think we can sell this plastic gizmo for 1000% markup" Bob: "Wonderful, we can use those profits to lower prices on things people need!"