Yes, groceries are more expensive. Now what?



Inflation. Everyone's discussing it these days, at least on X.

Is it bad? Is it fine? Are our perceptions skewed by virtue of living in 2026 which makes accurate evaluation of prices in 1996 impossible?

Going to McDonald’s was an occasion back then. There weren’t 35 different kinds of IPAs in the grocery store. Arugula didn’t exist until sometime around 2009.

It’s hard to know. Different people have different ideas on all of this and it’s hard to say one is more right than another. Sometimes there are multiple right answers.

Socialism starter

Matt Walsh wrote:

Grocery prices are insane. They’re still rising. Addressing this problem should be the number one priority of every elected leader. End the stupid foreign wars and focus on this issue. It’s one of the main reasons socialists are gaining power.

He’s not wrong. Grocery prices are higher than I ever remember. Most families I know are acutely aware of the situation. When you're feeding growing kids, you can’t skimp the way you skimped when you were 21. You can’t feed them junk because it’s cheaper; you have to feed them nutritiously, and so you end up feeling those higher prices pretty sharply.

Burrito-nomics

Jeremy Kauffman wrote:

“So far as I can tell, it's simply not true that food has gotten more expensive in real dollars in the United States. Why are people so convinced this is true? What's the evidence?”

Below his post he shared a graph detailing the fact that grocery prices have only risen in nominal terms, not real terms, essentially saying prices are higher but so are wages.

In response to claims of $20 burritos being prohibitively expensive for young people, Kauffman detailed the hard numbers for feeding burritos to a family of eight with ingredients from Wal-Mart. The total price was $18.38

Kauffman isn’t wrong either. Although my wife handles the food in our house, I do know we buy our groceries from Meijer, Aldi, and Walmart. I know there are absolutely affordable prices to be found if you don’t buy your ingredients at Whole Foods and you make your food at home rather than going out. A gallon of milk from our local Walmart is $3.17; a gallon of milk from the nearby Whole Foods is $6.69.

To his point about prices rising nominally but not in real terms, I’m not an economist or a statistician, so I don’t know all the ins and outs of how these numbers are calculated, but I do know we tend to really notice in passionate and negative terms when the prices swell at the store but we don’t really notice or account for our paycheck swelling in our bank account. It’s a sad fact that we tend to focus on the bad more than the good.

Passion for premium

Lomez wrote:

Short answer is that post-boomers became accustomed to premium/boutique brands. These things do, in fact, cost a lot more than generics. No seed oils. All organic. Cage free. Etc. Etc. My family spends a lot more on groceries in *real* dollars than my parents did because, like just about everyone posting online about this, we over-extend and buy the$20 dollar bottle of nice Vermont maple syrup and $8 fancy French butter and do this across the board for almost every category [choose your own indulgence/health fixation]. I know we're not alone in this. I've seen your pantries.

The longer answer is that other categories of spending have gone significantly up — housing, childcare, insurance — and so there's less slack in the average person's budget. Grocery prices might be flat as a general matter, but the belt can still feel — and actually be — a lot tighter.

He is certainly correct, and like most other very correct answers to complex questions, the people don’t want to hear it.

In the 1990s, before the foodie revolution, our parents fed us very plain food. We rarely went out to eat, and it was a big event when we did. There were no cans of sparkling water. We never had pop in the fridge. We didn’t even really stop at fast food when traveling; we packed sandwiches in a cooler full of half-melted ice bags at the bottom.

Going to McDonald’s was an occasion back then. There weren’t 35 different kinds of IPAs in the grocery store. Arugula didn’t exist until sometime around 2009. The children of 2026 have no experience with the iceberg lettuce salad of 1996 — you know the one, with bland white crispy lettuce, large tomatoes that aren’t even close to ripe, and three fat cucumber slices.

Our kids eat guacamole, sushi, organic eggs, copious amounts of raspberries with Greek yogurt in the morning, and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t even encounter until I was in my 20s.

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H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images

Fancy feasts

It’s a fascinating story about class and taste. How even though our society is, in many ways, more classless and lowbrow than ever, many people are eating food that really only very wealthy and very health-conscious individuals ate back in 1996, and that fact plays some role in how we perceive prices.

The thing about shifting expectations after the foodie revolution is that it doesn’t feel like any of those things that were fancy and expensive in 1996 are elite in 2026. Fresh guacamole is now the Kraft American cheese single, and now no one would eat the Kraft American cheese single, and this skews our perception.

Of course, it goes without saying that someone does eat the Kraft American cheese single. Millions of people do, just like we did. Actually, in fact, we didn’t eat the Kraft American single at the Root house in 1996 because they were considered kind of fancy and more expensive than buying a block of cheese and cutting it yourself.

Reality bites

The truth about inflation is that whether it’s real bad, pretty normal, or the end of the world as we know it, we can’t do anything about it. You, dear reader, have no way to meaningfully change the global financial system or the American economic situation at this time. These things are too big for an individual citizen to have any control over. You can’t make the prices lower, you can’t stop the bleeding, you can’t do anything other than buy what you need to buy while doing your best to stay within your budget.

We humans have a terrible tendency to focus very heavily on things we can’t really change. I don’t know why it is, but it is. Is it because we are naturally malcontent? Or is it because we are whiners with no strength? Or maybe we are masochists? Obsessing endlessly about something you view as terrible and painful when you have no way to change it seems like a form of masochism, doesn’t it?

Whatever it is, it isn’t good. We can’t focus all our energy or emotional firepower on being angry about inflation. Maybe we should be angry; maybe we shouldn’t be angry. I don’t know. But I do know that all we can do is acknowledge the reality of the world as it is, whether it be good or bad, and do our best to adapt to the current situation, live the best life we can in the meantime, and hope for the best.

That’s how it was in 1996 and how it is in 2026.

Karoline Leavitt rips into WaPo for 'BS story' about Trump and Hegseth



A report from the Washington Post claiming President Donald Trump is angry at Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been vehemently denied by the White House on social media.

The report said that the military's stockpile of long-range missiles had been extremely depleted by the strikes against Iran, and the president was blaming Hegseth.

'Unfortunately for them, the President loves the Secretary and thinks he’s doing a tremendous job. FAKE NEWS!'

"I was at Camp David with President Trump and Secretary Hegseth. This literally never happened, and we told the Washington Post that repeatedly," wrote Leavitt on social media Wednesday.

"This B.S. story was shopped to many outlets by someone clearly out to disparage the Secretary, for whatever reason," she added. "Unfortunately for them, the President loves the Secretary and thinks he’s doing a tremendous job. FAKE NEWS!"

The report depended on two sources who claimed to have knowledge about the interaction between Trump and Hegseth at Camp David. One source said the depletion of military resources was limiting what options the president had going forward.

Hegseth reportedly blamed War Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg for persuading the president that Iran would quickly capitulate after the attacks.

The report did include a statement of denial from Leavitt.

"This is 100% fake news. Literally never happened. And President Trump has the utmost confidence in Secretary Hegseth," she responded.

Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell also offered a denial of the story.

"Secretary Hegseth did not mislead anyone about our munitions posture, and he did not blame Deputy Secretary Feinberg. These claims about depleted stockpiles, internal disagreements, the Secretary’s position on Iran ... are equally fictional," he responded.

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The economic fallout of the strikes on gas prices and inflation has led to some dissent among the supporters of the president.

Trump has continued to insist that the polling in the mainstream media is wrong.

"My REAL Polling Numbers, not those made up by the Fake News Media, are the best they have ever been, and why wouldn’t they be," he wrote on Truth Social on Monday. "Don’t believe the Radical Left’s Fake Poll numbers. They are Crooked and Corrupt, just like the Country Destroying Dumocrats are Crooked and Corrupt."

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‘Paperwork’ Is Driving People Away From Food Stamps. Good

The problem isn't just welfare fraud. It's all the hundreds of billions of dollars in welfare itself, starting with food stamps.

The GOP strikes out on inflation and immigration — again



Inflation and invasion. Those were the two issues that propelled Donald Trump to victory in 2024. Now Congress is facing what is essentially its last chance to fulfill those election mandates after squandering its best political capital during the first year and a half of this term.

Yet as Republicans push their third and final party-line budget reconciliation bill, the priorities are once again random and disconnected from the two central campaign promises.

Republicans appear poised to end this Trump trifecta the same way they ended the last one: without enduring victories.

Just like the first two bills.

Truth is, neither reconciliation bill cut the deficit on net. Neither defunded sanctuary cities, birthright citizenship, amnesty programs, or the judicial review now hampering every facet of immigration enforcement.

The first bill — the one fueled by the greatest political capital Republicans had enjoyed in years — focused on a random assortment of tax provisions that failed to excite the country and likely added significantly to the deficit. It also contained more defense spending.

The second bill simply threw more money at the Department of Homeland Security, which, under current failed policies, will not change the dynamic of litigating every last illegal alien removal to death.

So what is in Reconciliation 3.0?

The bulk of it is $73 billion for the military, mainly for the Iran war, though it will likely include funding to rebuild Arab Gulf states.

So despite complaints that the GOP cannot move beyond its myopic focus on taxes and defense spending, 11 years into the MAGA movement, that is still all Trump and Republicans seem capable of producing: more tax cuts, more spending, and more money thrown at a wasteful Pentagon.

In fact, while this bill earmarks $73 billion for defense, Trump originally asked for $350 billion.

Let’s start with the military component.

If our military cannot keep the Strait of Hormuz open on a $1 trillion annual budget, then something is wrong with the weapons we are buying, the strategy we are pursuing, or the will to use the tools we already possess.

Republicans cannot continue mindlessly increasing the defense budget without auditing our strategic interests and determining whether the current procurement regime satisfies our needs.

Throwing another $100 billion or $200 billion at Boeing and General Dynamics will not change the dynamic.

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Brendan SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

Last June, the House Oversight Committee’s Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee held a roundtable highlighting a GAO report on procurement waste.

“DOD now plans to invest over $2.4 trillion in its costliest weapon programs,” the report found. “However, because the department remains alarmingly slow in delivering capabilities, these investments are at high risk of becoming obsolete before they even reach the field.”

So long as the defense industry knows congressional appropriations are effectively unlimited, it will continue gouging taxpayers for these weapons systems.

Meanwhile, Congress should be asking a basic question, regardless of one’s view of the decision to go to war with Iran: How do we still lack the leverage to keep shipping lanes open against an adversary that essentially lacks an air force and a functional navy?

And if we lack the weapons and strategy to protect shipping lanes against Iran, how do we plan to deter China from doing the same in the South China Sea after it has already built extensive military infrastructure on artificial islands?

It will not happen by throwing another $100 billion at the same system.

This bill will therefore accomplish what Republicans usually accomplish when in power: It will add to the debt.

We all lamented Bidenflation. But since the debt ceiling was lifted during last year’s budget reconciliation bill, the debt has increased by $3.2 trillion. The monthly tab for interest on the debt in June was greater than the cost of the military and roughly on par with Medicare spending.

Meanwhile, despite the Federal Reserve lowering the federal funds rate over the past two years, the 10-year Treasury remains near a 19-year high. That means debt maturing this year will roll over at much higher interest rates.

So we print more money to service more debt, which is why the M2 money supply just hit another record.

In the wake of that debt service, we will not see a long-term easing of inflation.

As for immigration, this bill does nothing about anchor babies, sanctuary judges, or sanctuary cities. It does nothing to defund foreign-worker programs fleecing American workers and college graduates.

Instead, it includes $10 billion to bribe states to deal with voter fraud, including the threat of noncitizens voting. But the only states likely to use the money properly are the states already combatting voter fraud.

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David McNew/Getty Images

There is no point passing this provision without the legal enforcement of the SAVE Act. Frankly, there is little point passing the SAVE Act without fixing the antecedent problem: our immigration policies.

Then, of course, the bill contains a $12 billion bailout for farmers hurt by Trump’s other failed signature economic policy: tariffs.

But if this same Congress and White House continue pushing a farm bill that perpetuates the subsidy regime harming small farmers — and if they continue supporting endless rezoning of farmland for data centers — what is the point of throwing more good money after bad?

The lesson is obvious.

Republicans appear poised to end this Trump trifecta the same way they ended the last one: without enduring victories.

Sure, they passed Elizabeth Warren’s Section 8 bill. But they have not passed a single major provision that seriously addresses immigration or inflation.

They had three chances to do something transformational.

They struck out.

But fear not. In congressional baseball, there is always a fourth chance for voters they treat as suckers.

“We’re right now looking at a reconciliation 4.0 to do the things that are left out of this one,” a House Republican told Politico on Wednesday. Oh, joy!

ROOKE: SCOTUS Flips The Bird To Young Americans

'The only real remedy would require a Constitutional amendment.'

Last summer's teen hiring market was the worst on record. Alarming report shows it's about to get even worse — here's why.



For generations, landing a summer job has been a traditional American rite of passage. Whether working at a local ice cream shop, a neighborhood grocery store, or an amusement park, teenagers have their very first taste of being a part of the workforce. However, a new report shows that teens are facing the toughest hiring market since the government began tracking the data in 1948.

The traditional summer job that generations of American teenagers have relied on is facing its grimmest outlook in nearly eight decades.

'That is exactly the kind of work teens depend on.'

Challenger, Gray, and Christmas — a Chicago-based workforce consulting company — released a recent forecast revealing the troubling summer employment outlook that teens are grappling with.

Citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the report noted that last summer's teen hiring total plummeted to its lowest level since the government began tracking the data in 1948. In 2025, teen summer hiring hit rock bottom at 801,000 positions — the worst figure in the 77-year history of tracking by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, this summer's job forecast for teenagers is even more dire. In an alarming projection, Challenger, Gray, and Christmas warns that employers will offer teens 790,000 jobs in May, June, and July 2026.

The previous documented low point occurred in 1949 during post-war demobilization, when teen hiring dropped to 932,000. In 2010, the total number of teenage jobs fell to 960,000, when the economic recovery from the Great Recession dragged on.

Fortune reported that federal data shows that approximately one-third of 16- to 19-year-olds in the United States were employed last summer, noting that it is "down from a peak of about 60% in the late 1970s."

The Wall Street Journal reported that applications for New York City's Summer Youth Employment Program this year have already shattered 2025's record of 200,000 candidates competing for just 100,000 slots.

Meanwhile, advertisements for summer camp counselor positions on the Indeed jobs board have crashed by nearly 30% year-over-year, according to the WSJ.

"Last summer was the weakest summer for teen hiring we have ever recorded," said Andy Challenger, labor and workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray, and Christmas.

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Challenger stressed, "What is striking is that it happened without a recession."

The report by Challenger, Gray, and Christmas cited "rising inflation, climbing oil prices, and a broadly cautious hiring environment" as factors contributing to the historically weak teen summer job forecast. The report also said artificial intelligence, automation, and older workers staying in the workforce later have hurt job prospects for teens.

"Inflation and rising fuel costs are squeezing the same households and small businesses that hire teens, such as amusement parks, restaurants, retailers, and summer camps," Challenger continued. "When margins tighten, summer hirers will wait for demand to dictate hiring."

Challenger said, "We predicted a quiet summer last year, and it played out even quieter than expected. The dynamics that drove that slowdown — cost pressures, automation, employers waiting to see how consumer demand holds up — are all still in place, and in some cases they’ve intensified."

Non-seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that there were 5,193,000 employed workers ages 16 to 19 in April. The report said the total is a noticeable drop from the figure from April 2025, which saw 5,487,000 teen workers on payrolls.

Challenger pointed out, "When fewer teens are working in April, the late-spring catch-up usually doesn’t close the gap. June will be the most important month to watch, but the trajectory is already pointing down."

Challenger, Gray, and Christmas reported, "Entertainment and leisure, which led the seasonal categories most relevant to teen hiring last year with 28,000 announced plans, has announced only 8,261 hiring plans through April of this year, a 70% drop."

Challenger added, "The collapse in entertainment and leisure hiring announcements is one of the clearest signals we have for the summer."

Challenger said jobs in places like theme parks, resorts, hotels, and events will "run leaner this year."

"That is exactly the kind of work teens depend on," Challenger stated.

The report said teenagers could find employment opportunities in agriculture, hospitality, and food service. The report claimed that in areas with crackdowns on illegal immigration could help American teens secure jobs.

"Tighter labor supply in certain regions, particularly those most affected by ongoing immigration enforcement actions, continues to push some employers to lean more heavily on local teen workers," the report proclaimed.

Challenger declared, "In the places where labor remains tight, teens can be a real solution."

According to NewsNation, teenagers could find a "few bright spots" in summer employment, including lifeguards and working in retail.

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Glenn Beck EXPOSES the economic stats used to destroy your hope



If you only read the headlines, you’d think the American dream is officially out of reach. Starter homes cost more than $1 million. Summer electric bills are approaching $800. Families are struggling to keep up.

But Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck argues that the story being sold to Americans is incomplete.

“As of today, there are 242 cities in this country where the typical starter home, the first rung, the one that’s supposed to be for the beginners, costs a million or more dollars,” Glenn explains.

“By the way, before the pandemic, that number was not 242. It was 80. So in five years, it nearly tripled,” he adds.

California has the most cities with these high-priced “starter” homes, while New York and New Jersey aren’t far behind.


But it’s not just housing costs that are up — utilities are too.

“Americans are projected to spend almost $800 on electricity just getting through this summer, June through September. That’s up more than 10% from last year,” Glenn says.

“Now, the pros at the National Energy Assistance Directors Association will tell you it’s a stack of things all landing at once — hotter summers, more air conditioning, an aging grid that needs hundreds of billions in upgrades, the new AI data centers that everybody loves to point at, and inflation,” he explains.

“Monthly bills are up 23% since 2019. And right now, 1 in 6 Americans, 1 in 6 households, is behind on the utility bill. Arizona is getting hit the hardest. Then it’s Connecticut, Washington state. North Dakota has it the easiest,” he continues.

However, Glenn points out that these are just headlines — and as per usual, the mainstream media is not telling the whole story.

“If you lose the truth, the next thing you lose is hope. ... A lot of Americans have lost both. So, let me give you the truth under the headline because the truth is where you’re going to find hope,” Glenn says.

“Let’s start with a million-dollar house. That number is real. It’s not your number. Because buried in the same report is the figure that nobody put in the story or the headline: The typical starter home in America is worth 198,649,” he continues.

“Now, that is still a lot of money, but it’s not $1 million. It’s under $200,000. Those 242 terrifying cities are all clustered where? On the expensive coastlines,” he adds.

As for the electricity bill, Glenn says, “if you are one of the 1 in 6, the why is not warming or cooling your house. Knowing the AI data centers are only part of the problem doesn’t lower the number on that envelope that you’re avoiding now because you can’t pay it.”

He points out that “every bit of wire” in our electric grid “was built by a past generation.”

“The same generation, one generation, electrified a continent that had been dark since the beginning of time. One generation. Abundance was a choice that we made. ... And that means we can make that choice again,” he says.

“You’re not in checkmate. You’re not. You’re being told in stories like this about averages,” he continues, adding, “and you don’t live in an average.”

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Blame Government Overspending For America’s Affordability Crisis

Democrats will spend the midterms trying to equate 'affordability' with more government spending programs. Conservatives should make the opposite case.

Trump’s Top Economic Advisor Touts Growing Wages — But There’s A Problem

'Inflation is now outpacing wage growth'

Jeff Bezos blames government policy — not billionaires — for America’s economic problems



In a recent interview, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pushed back against claims that taxing billionaires more would meaningfully improve life for working Americans, arguing that even dramatically increasing his tax burden would do little to solve inflation or lower costs for families.

“People sometimes say that, you know, I don’t pay taxes. That’s not true. I pay billions of dollars in taxes ... if people want me to pay more billions, then let’s have that debate, but don’t pretend that that’s going to solve the problem,” Bezos said.

“You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens. I promise you. You can’t connect those two things. Not logically,” he added.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray couldn’t agree with Bezos more, pointing out that he also “bleeds terribly” during tax season — but the government largely just wastes his money.


“And so, what happens is you could double that, or you could triple it, or you could quadruple it. It’s still going to the government, and they’re still wasting it on crap,” he adds.

But Bezos wasn’t done, taking on high rent costs as well.

“I recently saw somebody blame it on Airbnb. OK, Airbnb is not the cause of expensive rent ... it’s already been outlawed in New York City and rents are still very high. So we know Airbnb isn’t causing high rents,” he said.

“What’s really causing high rent is government intervention. We subsidize demand with things like tax policy, which is fine, but at the same time, we constrain supply. We constrain supply with things like zoning and permitting. Why does it take so long to get something permitted to build?” he continued.

“If you want rents to come down, econ 101, really simple,” he said, explaining that you can’t subsidize demand and constrain supply.

“If you do, prices are going to skyrocket. But this is not anybody’s fault other than government policy. And this is fixable. Again, this is a skills issue,” he added.

“We should put together an economic commission. Featuring Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, you probably want to avoid Bill Gates,” Gray comments.

“But you know, get these guys together who know how to be successful and understand economics and help us craft a makes-sense tax policy in this country where you’re not just pounding people who are successful,” he adds.

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