Portside

LIBERTY COUNTY, Ga. — Ask almost any shopper outside this sprawling Walmart southeast of Savannah, and they'll tell you about rising prices.

"The meat is going up. Milk, eggs, everything is going up," says Cicely Gardner, rolling a cart with some doughnuts in the parking lot.

But wait. The rate of inflation has cooled for two years, and not everything is going up in price. So why does paying at checkout still cause such heartburn? What gives?

NPR set off to answer that question at the most popular retailer in the United States. For six years, we have tracked the prices of dozens of items at this very Walmart superstore. And here's what we learned on our latest visit, in December. (Or skip the analysis to see the full details of NPR's shopping cart.)

NPR's list includes 96 items from virtually every Walmart aisle: chips and veggies, shampoo and T-shirts, dog food and paper towels. To account for changes in package sizes, we focus on the price per unit, typically per ounce, whether it's toothpaste in a tube or soup in a can.

Over the course of 2024, the tracked prices on average increased just 0.7% — far less than overall annual inflation, which was 2.7% in November. (December's inflation data will be released on Wednesday.)

That's because exactly half of our tracked prices stayed the same from December 2023 to December 2024 — a notable relief after the COVID-19 pandemic, when most prices jumped year to year because of turmoil in supply chains and labor markets.

Twenty-one items in NPR's shopping cart actually got cheaper during the year, including garlic, bananas and salmon. Another 27 products got more expensive, including eggs, ground beef and laundry detergent.

The five-year view is much more painful

Items in NPR's shopping cart are much pricier since mid-2019, our last check before the pandemic. On average, those tracked prices have increased around 25%. And that's not far from federal inflation data: Cumulatively, U.S. prices are up 23% since 2019.

For example, a 4-pound bag of Domino sugar now costs $4.46. That's 74% more compared with NPR's visit to Walmart in 2019. A dozen eggs cost $4.90, or 83% more than they cost five years ago. Tide liquid laundry detergent now comes in a smaller container — 84 ounces instead of 100 ounces — but costs $1 more, in a classic case of shrinkflation. Regular family grocery runs add up.

Back in 2019, NPR's visit to this suburban Walmart, near a large Army base, focused on the impact of then-President Donald Trump's trade war with China. Our shopping cart was smaller, filled with many products either imported or made with imported parts. Only a few of those items have now gotten cheaper, including frozen shrimp, swai fish and — most dramatically — screwdrivers. (Walmart has switched brands, and the price is now 60% lower than it was.)

2019 prices will stay in the past

Big price increases are rarely followed by equally big price decreases, historically. That's because seismic shifts in the global economy cannot simply be undone.

For example, it still costs more than it did in 2019 to ship things across the world. It costs more to fertilize soil where our food grows, because Russia is one of the biggest exporters of fertilizer. Prices have grown for paper and corrugated cardboard used in packaging. President Biden has largely kept Trump's tariffs on Chinese imports, which means U.S. companies are paying higher import fees — and passing some of that cost on to shoppers.

Stores, factories, farms and warehouses are paying more for utilities and insurance. Gas prices affect the cost of trucking. American wages, on average, have outpaced inflation for more than a year and a half, with some wage increases affecting the cost of making, packing, selling and delivering our purchases.

Some items — like eggs, beef, chocolate and coffee — have faced specific troubles. Cases of avian flu have continued in chickens and cows. Dairy and cattle farmers also point to droughts increasing the cost of feed. Extreme weather has damaged harvests of coffee and cocoa, leading to record wholesale prices.

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