Prior to the pandemic, I always advocated for a couple weeks worth of non-perishables to be at the ready. Storms can cause issues getting to stores (or shipments arriving), and illness can make it a pain to make a weekly run. Now my significant other is entirely on board.
When normal ingredients we used became unavailable, it caused us to continually try new things. I have to admit I was pretty surprised to see today's customers buy up the basic scratch ingredients like rabid consumers early in the pandemic. Flour, sugar, etc. were all a real pain to get a hold of.
I thought prices were increasing pretty steadily before the pandemic and now it's even worse. I can remember so many items being as cheap as 25 cents each during the 90s and into the 00s... now most of them at $1.50 each. Meanwhile, our state minimum wage has increased not nearly as much (but employers are having to offer closer and closer to double to rope in anyone).
> prices were increasing pretty steadily during the pandemic and now it's even worse. I can remember so many items being as cheap as 25 cents each during the 90s and into the 00s...
How long have you been having a pandemic for?
Joking aside (that sentence read a bit weirdly), I don't think you should compare what happened in the 90s with what happened since 2020-02. If inflation surpasses minimum wage in the long term, that's not the same as prices soaring because of supply chain changes. And for what it's worth, I've not noticed any price increases here between 2020-02 and last week. This is way too anecdotal and conflating different situations to be useful.
The data does, really - on an off-hand search I found this[1], though I'm sure many more could be found. The US has trailed the rest of the world for decades on wage growth and income equality.
That's great, they're just two items and a lot of people didn't routinely buy flour (or something like yeast). Meanwhile, everything else has gone up in addition. A number of produce items have increased 25-50% in the last year here.
Gotta love some of the people on HN. Maybe it's just the late night crowd?
When normal ingredients we used became unavailable, it caused us to continually try new things. I have to admit I was pretty surprised to see today's customers buy up the basic scratch ingredients like rabid consumers early in the pandemic. Flour, sugar, etc. were all a real pain to get a hold of.
I thought prices were increasing pretty steadily before the pandemic and now it's even worse. I can remember so many items being as cheap as 25 cents each during the 90s and into the 00s... now most of them at $1.50 each. Meanwhile, our state minimum wage has increased not nearly as much (but employers are having to offer closer and closer to double to rope in anyone).