If you have paid attention at all to New York’s idiotic new Mayor Zohran Mamdani, you probably know that one of his big promises is to open a chain of City-owned grocery stores. These stores, supposedly, will solve the problem of “affordability” of groceries by offering a basket of standard items at prices some 30% below what the other stores charge.
Now I recognize that there has been some substantial inflation in the food sector of the economy in the past few years. In some cases, and for some families, the price increases have been unpleasant or even difficult. However, I submit that there is no way to look at the American food supply and delivery system without seeing it as something close to a miracle for human flourishing.
According to the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, the share of disposable personal income spent on food by U.S. consumers in 2025 was 9.7%. And about half of that was spend “away from home,” that is, in restaurants. That leaves less than 5% of disposable personal income as the average cost of feeding a family at home. This has to be an all time record in human history. Also, according to USDA data, the “at home” cost has continued its long term decline as a portion of personal income over the past several decades, going from about 6% in 1997 to under 5% in 2025. Here is USDA’s chart covering the period 1997 - 2025:
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