Everything is too damn expensive these days, and that’s not simply a matter of opinion. From the Associated Press, “Buying food to eat at home has gotten 33 percent more expensive in U.S. cities since the beginning of 2019, according to government figures. In the 7 1/2 years before that, prices rose 6.4 percent.” Take a look at that figure again and let it really sink in. Food has gotten 33 percent more expensive since 2019, up over 26.6 percent over the seven preceding years.
Of course, there have been a few contributing factors — a global pandemic, Russia’s war in Ukraine’s effect on oil and fertilizer supplies, President Donald Trump’s asinine tariffs, and a world-trade-disrupting “conflict” in Iran, for starters. Still, our leaders are, at least ostensibly, adults, professionals even, with a wide array of tools at their disposal. So, why hasn’t more been done to alleviate the strain on Americans’ wallets? (We both know that the answer is, “Because it’s making a lot of wealthy people much, much wealthier,” but entertain the thought experiment for a moment please.)
Well, at least our intrepid elected officials are working hard to ensure that our increasingly expensive food doesn’t poison us. Right? Right?
Nope.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is actively investigating 10 foodborne illness outbreaks. The two Cyclospora outbreaks linked to iceberg lettuce and other leafy greens have affected people in 41 states, even leading to some hospitalizations and deaths in severe cases. That’s just the Cyclospora, though. The FDA is also investigating outbreaks of Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, E. coli, and Clostridium botulinum affecting everything from frozen blueberries to powdered infant formula.
Some readers may wonder what anyone is supposed to do about my litany of complaints. Should the government really get mixed up in the free market? In regulating what we eat? To this, the only answer can be a resounding yes. Look at the alternative. Shoppers are paying almost 35 percent more for food that might send them to the hospital, or at least running to the nearest bathroom. This is exactly what the government exists to do — regulate the increasingly complicated and interconnected system that connects us all.
Before the publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, before striking workers went toe-to-toe with Pinkerton agents, before the (not even 100 years old) Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, children under 14 years old might work 12-hour shifts in unsafe conditions and go home to eat bread made from flour thinned with sawdust as a price-saving measure. That’s what a world of small government looks like, an unregulated hellscape where everyone has the individual right to slowly die of malnutrition from eating wood pulp masquerading as sourdough.
Though a mom-and-pop business might use healthy ingredients because it’s the so-called “right thing to do,” or because they believe in the antiquated concept of ensuring customer loyalty by delivering a consistently high-quality product, the same cannot be said for the giant megacorporations responsible for an increasing share of what’s available on grocery store shelves. There are simply too many chances to pass the buck, as is evidenced by the strangely high number of foodborne illnesses popping up in the wake of Trump and DOGE’s cuts to the agencies built to protect Americans.
So, what is to be done? As a place to start, we should return the FDA, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health to pre-Trump levels of staffing and funding. Outlaw personalized pricing (also called surveillance pricing, for the reason that it depends on an un-American and Orwellian level of surveillance to institute it). Surge pricing might be on the chopping block as well. Of course, the federal minimum wage of the laughably insignificant $7.25 per hour should be raised for the first time since 2009.
Those measures simply help to ameliorate the harm done in recent years. A truly progressive person might also suggest some law requiring companies reporting record-breaking profits to freeze price increases for a time. Heck, maybe we even reconsider whether or not corporations are people.
These problems and these potential solutions may not be romantic or exciting. Though they don’t get the blood pumping the way talk of culture war and international defense does, they are problems that affect every working American, and, as such, they are vital.
Remember, the primary job of government is the profoundly unsexy work of making sure no one dies of a preventable and explosive bout of diarrhea.
Jesse Davis is a former Flyer staffer; he writes a monthly books feature for Memphis Magazine. His opinions, such as they are, have become professional penny pinchers.
