By the numbers
Wisconsinites’ spending on food rose sharply in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily driven by inflation in prices, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show.
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture
Total spending on food grew steadily from $12.17 billion in 1998 to nearly $27 billion in 2019. During 2020, Wisconsin’s total spending dipped slightly to $26.3 billion. This was due primarily to a massive decrease in dining out amid social distancing policies and government lockdowns, and it knocked down spending on food away from home by $1.5 billion. By contrast, spending on food at home in 2020 increased by $0.9 billion. Total spending then rebounded energetically in the following years, reaching a total of $34.2 billion in 2023.
When inflation is taken into account, however, the real value of food purchased by Wisconsinites hasn’t increased very much. The USDA adjusts for inflation by calculating the constant-dollar level of spending in terms of 1988 prices. That is, if the value of the dollar were held fixed at the end of the Reagan administration, the food Wisconsinites bought in 1998 would have cost just under $9 billion. By 2023, that amount would have grown to only $12.6 billion. Real spending on food has decreased two years in a row in 2022 and 2023.
The USDA also keeps track of the difference between spending on food at home and spending on food away from home. The data show that while Wisconsin residents historically have spent more on eating in than on dining out, in recent years that gap has nearly closed.
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The data suggest that the driving force behind this shift is price inflation, not spending habits. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces the Consumer Price Index (CPI), tracks changes in the prices of “food at home” and “food away from home” separately. Using those unique price deflators, the USDA applies inflation adjustments to each category separately to determine how they fluctuate relative to each other. In real, constant-dollar terms, spending on food at home declined from 2021 to 2023, and spending on dining out has held essentially flat. Thus, the nominal increase in spending is due entirely to increases in the price level.
The underlying numbers (in millions of dollars):
| Year | FAH (nominal) | FAFH (nominal) | Total nominal food sales | FAH (constant) | FAFH (constant) | Total constant-dollar food sales |
| 1998 | 7,346 | 4,822 | 12,168 | 5,396 | 3,584 | 8,980 |
| 1999 | 7,751 | 5,107 | 12,858 | 5,576 | 3,703 | 9,279 |
| 2000 | 8,209 | 5,469 | 13,678 | 5,772 | 3,856 | 9,628 |
| 2001 | 8,490 | 5,699 | 14,189 | 5,789 | 3,906 | 9,695 |
| 2002 | 8,478 | 5,877 | 14,355 | 5,737 | 3,944 | 9,680 |
| 2003 | 8,782 | 6,201 | 14,983 | 5,860 | 4,080 | 9,940 |
| 2004 | 9,193 | 6,587 | 15,781 | 5,961 | 4,210 | 10,171 |
| 2005 | 9,643 | 6,918 | 16,561 | 6,122 | 4,275 | 10,397 |
| 2006 | 9,879 | 7,291 | 17,171 | 6,173 | 4,386 | 10,559 |
| 2007 | 10,260 | 7,550 | 17,810 | 6,166 | 4,391 | 10,557 |
| 2008 | 10,561 | 7,687 | 18,249 | 5,965 | 4,268 | 10,233 |
| 2009 | 10,213 | 7,606 | 17,820 | 5,715 | 4,071 | 9,786 |
| 2010 | 10,364 | 7,795 | 18,159 | 5,773 | 4,126 | 9,900 |
| 2011 | 10,858 | 8,164 | 19,022 | 5,777 | 4,216 | 9,992 |
| 2012 | 11,999 | 8,593 | 20,591 | 6,221 | 4,312 | 10,532 |
| 2013 | 12,272 | 9,076 | 21,349 | 6,328 | 4,447 | 10,775 |
| 2014 | 12,727 | 9,673 | 22,400 | 6,403 | 4,612 | 11,015 |
| 2015 | 12,657 | 10,577 | 23,234 | 6,333 | 4,893 | 11,226 |
| 2016 | 12,972 | 11,197 | 24,169 | 6,578 | 5,051 | 11,629 |
| 2017 | 13,271 | 11,980 | 25,252 | 6,754 | 5,316 | 12,069 |
| 2018 | 13,675 | 12,461 | 26,136 | 6,957 | 5,400 | 12,357 |
| 2019 | 13,953 | 12,942 | 26,896 | 7,064 | 5,462 | 12,526 |
| 2020 | 14,882 | 11,466 | 26,348 | 7,323 | 4,719 | 12,042 |
| 2021 | 15,935 | 14,238 | 30,173 | 7,581 | 5,576 | 13,157 |
| 2022 | 16,752 | 15,922 | 32,674 | 7,061 | 5,735 | 12,797 |
| 2023 | 17,199 | 16,978 | 34,177 | 6,890 | 5,726 | 12,616 |
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