Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Americans Spend More On Junk Food, Less On Groceries Overall

By Cornelius Nunev


Individuals have it good, in a way, in that we spend less than many other first-world countries on food, which is fairly significant. Granted, farming subsidies do have a good bit to do with it. However, we have also been investing more on junk food than almost any type of food item.

Spending a lot less on food

The average American household is said to have an income of $50,000 per year. That isn't really exactly the lap of luxury for the typical two-parent, two-child plus assorted pets home. However, the good news is that, as a nation, we spend less on food than other developed nations.

The Agency of Labor Statistics explained that in 2009, the average household spent $6,372 on food. About $2,619 of that was for food from home and $3,753 was for food in the home. Mother Jones reports that the spending is only 6 percent of the $32,051 yearly outlay for the year. The French spend 14 percent on food of the outlay while the British spends 9 percent on food.

Largely, according to a recent article by NPR, it has to do with the cost of food in America steadily decreasing over the past 30 years.

Michelle Obama advocating better food

In 1982, the average household spent 13 percent of the yearly outlay on food, which means we are actually doing better now. This is despite the belief that the amount spent has increased to about 8 percent now, according to recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Food costs have actually dropped a lot in that time. In fact, no meats went up in price. Steak costs dropped from $7 a pound to $4.90 a pound from 1982 to 2012. Grapefruit costs increased 6.5 percent and bell pepper costs increased 34 percent. Other than that, no other vegetables and fruit increased in price.

Michelle Obama's complaints about kid food health are entirely justified when you consider the percentage of what individuals spent on different foods. From 1982 to 2012, there were many changes in the amount used on food. For example, Vegetables and fruit went from 14.5 percent to 14.6 percent, staying relatively the same. Meats dropped from 31.3 percent to 21.5 percent. The worst part is that processed foods and sweets increased from 11.6 percent to 22.9 percent.

Subsidies do it

Mother Jones explained that the agriculture subsidies have helped produce more food making prices go down. In fact, the amount of corn produced produced from 1995 to 2010 in America increased from 4 billion bushels a year to 12 billion bushels. In that same time frame, $261.9 billion in subsidies have been given out.

Some costs are going up. According to Forbes, grain and meats have both begun rising recently. In 2011, the price of meats went up by 8 percent. Grain costs doubled.

Only about 15.8 percent of the money brought in from selling food goes to the farmer who produced it, which means farmers do not benefit from the low costs, according to the Department of Agriculture. The Daily Green points out that this means farmers need higher costs.



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