Commenters may like to draw a sharp distinction between overall and core and point to core as evidence that this is not so bad, but the thing is, both overall and core measures have been steadily rising since February.
Overall cpi inflation which includes food and energy bleeds into core eventually, because energy inflation drives up the cost of everything.
This is ugly and getting uglier.
The president has scored an own goal opening the Iran war without a plan to keep the oil flowing.
... "The United States has defeated this pest before, and we will do it again," the USDA said.
... Dudley Hoskins, undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the USDA ... “USDA invested heavily in the tools needed to eliminate NWS ever since
cases started increasing in Central America and Mexico,” Hoskins said.
“The United States has defeated this pest before, and we will do it
again.” ...
... Washington has halted cattle imports from Mexico and invested millions
in setting up a new sterile fly production plant in Metapa, Mexico. But
it will take roughly a year to come online.
... The U.S. eliminated screwworms in the 20th century by flying planes over
hotspots to drop red-striped boxes packed with sterile flies, sometimes
called “cupcakes” by ranchers. The USDA constructed a fly production
plant in Mission, Texas, in 1962, that pumped out 96 trillion flies
until it was decommissioned in 1981. Now the USDA is planning to
resurrect the plant to disperse sterile flies, while Texas officials
have scattered 100 screwworm traps along the border.
USDA inspectors known as Tick Riders who patrol the border on horseback
to guard against another pest, the cattle fever tick, have also been
tasked with conducting screwworm preventive treatment for all cattle and
horses they find in the border area.
At the heart of the problem is an unworkable math equation. The USDA
estimated 500 million flies need to be released weekly to push the fly
back to the Darien Gap. At its maximum, the Panama plant produces just
100 million.
“It’s an overwhelming situation at this point,” Dr. Lansford said.
“Screwworm is obviously doing well in Mexico, and they’re up against the
same challenges we are.” ...
... Moscamed, as the factory is called, will begin manufacturing 100 million sterile flies by July 2026. ...
Until now, the sterile flies that are spread throughout the country to
combat the screwworm plague (100 million each week) are brought from a
plant managed by the Panama-United States Commission for the Eradication
and Prevention of the Cattle Screwworm (Copeg), in Panama, where they
have been working at maximum capacity to control the pest since January
2025. ...
With the other leg of the project, the construction of a manufacturing
plant for these flies in Texas, international efforts project a
production of up to 500 million flies per week, which will be released
throughout the region. If international cooperation continues, myiasis
could be eradicated in less time than the first time. Some
representatives of Senasica have even talked about achieving this goal
in five years. ...
USDA didn't break ground on the Texas facility until two months ago.
... Initial operational capability targeted for November 2027, reaching production of 100 million sterile flies per week.
Construction continues immediately beyond initial operations to scale
full production capacity to 300 million sterile flies per week. ...
This new state-of-the-art facility will complement USDA’s ongoing
production of 100 million sterile flies per week at the Panama-based COPEG facility.
USDA has also invested $21 million to support modernization of Mexico’s
Metapa, MX facility, expected to be operational in summer 2026. ...
The sum of the average prices of five ingredients for your April 2018 BLT (bacon, lettuce, tomato, lightly toasted white bread in butter) is 86-cents less in April 2026 than it otherwise would have been if it had increased as much as overall inflation has increased, up 27% instead of 33%.
The ingredients for a traditional American breakfast in April 2026, adjusted for consumer price index inflation since October 2019, should cost $29.91.
Instead they cost $35.79, $23.11 plus 54.9%.
Menu: Bacon and eggs, whole wheat toast with butter, coffee with milk and sugar, and a glass of orange juice.
The Biden high for all this was $33.20 in January 2023.
The all-time high to date was in March 2025 under Trump at $37.67.
The April 2026 Trump price is still 7.8% higher than the Biden high three-plus years ago.
Frankly, most of the economic charts produced by the government do this kind of thing.
Most of the time the rich use this data to tell you how well things are going, when what they really mean is how well it's going for them.
It's an aggregate measure, so that the vast sums earned by the rich distort higher what's actually happening to the majority.
In the as-reported numbers at the time, everything actually went sideways for a time during the Great Recession and personal income actually fell, except that even that decline disappeared as the revisions to the data came in. The rich still made money in the Great Recession, enough to lift this aggregate measure ever higher right through the recession even as banks failed by the hundreds and millions lost their jobs and homes.
But the rich use this particular data set right now to tell you things like "you don't know how to shop" and "groceries have never been cheaper", you ignoramus.
They controlled roughly 60% of all income from 2020 to mid-2025, and the top 20% by wealth held nearly 72% of total household wealth as of Q4 2025.
The top 20% received roughly $14 trillion of the $23 trillion in this chart in March 2026, leaving the remaining $9 trillion, 40%, to be split by the 80%, the rest of us, however we must.
Rising prices of anything will naturally impact the 20% far less than the 80%.
This story is about fresh tomatoes, not salad, and it is interesting, but the average price of tomatoes in 1Q2026 still hasn't surpassed 1Q2016.
Adjusted for inflation since 1Q1980, tomatoes could cost $2.64 per pound, but they were only $1.98 in 1Q.
As the story says, canned tomatoes are much cheaper. I make my sauce from stewed whole plum tomatoes from a can, preferably Italian, preferably San Marzano or Parma, but there are many acceptable American brands to choose from.
... Coffee prices in the U.S. were up 18.3% in January from a year ago, according to the latestConsumer Price Index released on Friday. Over five years, the government reported, coffee prices rose 47%. ...
A basket of bacon and eggs, whole wheat bread and butter, coffee and whole milk, and orange juice cost on average $32.47 in the United States in 3Q2024. Stretched out over a week, your breakfast cost you $4.64 a day.
That same basket in Jan 2026 is now $35.00 on average, up $2.53 or 7.8%.
Stretched out over a week breakfast now costs $5.00 a day.
Meanwhile OJ hit a new high, and despite removing some coffee-related tariffs, coffee hit a new record high price in Jan 2026, too.
Like many other such graphs, the graph for 100% Ground Beef won't show the 2025 average because the government shutdown meant no figure for October in the data.
The average $6.089 in 2025 is for eleven months without October, with October obviously a high figure, too, which means the annual average is no doubt higher than $6.089.
So, what do those of us cut, who long ago completely cut out entertainment, travel, food and drink away from home, and mend the clothes we cannot replace?
Drink period, for starters:
THE alcohol industry has faced financial hardship in 2025, leading to several distilleries filing for bankruptcy as Americans are drinking at the lowest levels in history. ... An August poll conducted byGallupfound that 54% of adults say they consume alcohol, which was down from 58% in 2024 and 62% in 2023.Gallup said the 54% finding is “the lowest by one percentage point in Gallup’s nearly 90-year trend.” ... Gallup found that 53% of Americans said having one or two drinks a day is bad for one’s health, while 37% say it makes no difference and 6% say it’s good for one’s health. ...
