By the numbers
The rise in grocery prices in the Midwest was down to 1.5 percent a year in September, the latest federal numbers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — well under the long-term average of 2.8 percent a year since 1980.
The figure means that a comparable “basket” of groceries costing $100 in January 1978 would have cost a Midwestern shopper $431 in September. That was 4 percent higher than two years before, in September 2024, but 31 percent higher than in September 2020.
The rate at which the price of what the BLS calls “food at home” has risen has been largely stable for the past four decades, with the last 18 months continuing the trend the Badger Institute reported in spring 2025.
Consumers, however, got a major break from October 2015 to the outbreak of the COVID pandemic in February 2020, with prices remaining flat during much of the period.
After a small surge in prices during the pandemic, prices fell again, but began surging in January 2021, rising 23 percent by July 2023. It was the largest sustained period of food price inflation since the 1970s.
Like previous periods of inflation, that surge was not followed by any sustained return to previous price levels. Of the 573 months since the start of 1979, only 57 months saw any decline in food prices since the year before.
The BLS defines the Midwest, for this measure, as Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and South Dakota.
Patrick McIlheran is executive editor at the Badger Institute.
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