[deathanatos]

I want per-capita numbers, otherwise these graphs are with "population goes up, food spending goes up". A real mystery.

The only real statement we get is,

> From 2019 to 2020, every State and Washington, DC, saw decreases in inflation-adjusted, per capita total food spending.

But the overall graph featured near the top of the article's slope is steep enough, I think, that the per-capita number hidden somewhere in there is also increasing across the duration. If I've done the napkin math right, roughly $2k/person/yr to $2.7k/person/yr.

But the big graph as presented confounds the problem we want to see the data on (stuff is getting more expensive) with population growth.

[vikingerik]

"From 2019 to 2020" was going directly into the bottom of the pandemic shutdowns. Ignore that, that's a cherrypicked outlier. Compare the annualized differential from 2019 to 2023 if you want to see real numbers. (Even the first half of 2022 still had significant pandemic drag.)