Comment: Trump promised a drop in food prices immediately, but I gave him six weeks. Here is my grocery bill

On January 19, the last day of the presidency of Joe Biden, I went to the neighborhood supermarket and at the cost of 28 articles, including milk, eggs, bacon and potatoes.

Six weeks after the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency, I went back to the same store and at the cost of the same items.

For what?

Because during the last presidential election, the voters complained several times in the economy and distinguished the high cost of the grocery store.

For a good reason.

Inflation is a killer, and whoever has been shopping in recent years is well aware that in a supermarket, your money is not going so far. Breakfast, lunch and dinner cost more than before.

Trump intelligently hammered this reality as a candidate.

“A vote for Trump means that your grocery products will be cheaper,” he said on the campaign track.

And how long did he say that it would take things?

“When I win, I will immediately lower prices, from day 1,” promised Trump.

You didn’t need a doctorate in economics to know that it was unlikely to happen. The markets are more complicated than that, and prices can swing on several independent factors for the control of an elected official.

But it was not uncommon to hear the voters cite the price of the grocery store as a central problem for them, and among those who said that inflation in general was the most important question, Two -thirds voted for TrumpAccording to an investigation.

Trump started backing as soon as he won the elections. He said in December that he still thought that solving the supply chain and drilling on American soil, to reduce energy costs, would lower food prices. But he pulled his promise of day 1 and pointed out, saying that Biden had led high prices, and “it is difficult to lower things once they have mounted … It’s very difficult.”

If you feel a feeling of already seen, it is perhaps because after having promised in his first mandate to immediately deliver cheaper and better health care for everyone-a Trump wish finally struck despite the republican control of the Congress-he said, “No one knew that health care could be so complicated.”

UC Professor Davis Daniel A. Sumner says that “the best thing to do is to raise consumers’ income”. The problem “is not the price of food is the price of food compared to people’s income”.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

On the prices of the grocery store, taking Trump was about as simplistic as that of the Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, who promised to repress the prices. In general, supermarkets operate on thin beneficiary margins, and the prices are a Byzantine calculation, explains the professor of the UC Davis, Daniel A. Sumner, who sat on the council of economic advisers of President Reagan and the American department of agriculture of President George HW Bush.

If stores are forced to increase the prices of eggs due to wholesale costs, said Sumner, they could reduce the price of other articles on the theory that buyers have only much money to spend. If stores keep eggs for $ 5 a dozen even when it means taking a loss, they are likely to increase prices on other items to make the difference. As much as possible, however, they like to keep the prices set on most items.

“The best thing to do is increase consumers’ income,” said Sumner, because the problem “is not the price of food, it is the price of food for people’s income.”

I am ready to concede that despite the drop in Trump prices to lower day 1, it is possible that part of its policies can play a role in lower prices in the months and years to come.

Or raise them.

So I will check periodically.

Michigan state professor David L. Ortega, food economist, said that an American president has little direct control over the prices of the grocery store, “especially in the short term”.

“The reason why there has been such a strong increase in the past four years is that a convergence of factors has had an impact on supply and demand, notably COVID, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, significant drought and epidemics of the bird flu,” said Ortega, adding that climate change has also had a significant impact on food production.

One way in which a president can influence prices is to create more stability, said Ortega.

But the opposite occurs, Trump unfolding prices, deportations and cuts to federal agencies that monitor food security and viruses.

“Even the threat of some of these policies” can be an inflationary, said Ortega, “because companies rush, trying to offer emergency plans to know where they could produce or find work.”

Now back to my shopping trip in a vons at Eagle Rock. On the campaign track last August, Trump used the grocery store as accessories to assert his point of view on inflation. The articles included cheerios, terrestrial butter, gold medal flour, eggs, bacon, bagels, bread, sausages and fruits.

I have evaluated many of these products and many others. My list included Thomas Bagels, Dave 21 grain bread, the farmer John Bacon, the Breyers ice cream, the Campbell chicken soup, Mott apple juice, sad, cheez-Ito, Oreo cookies, gold medal flour, C&H sugar, skipipy vegetable butter, Lucère sauce, Benla cheese, benla cheese Lucère milk, Potato’s laying, Lucère sauce, Benla cheese, Lucre milk, Potato chips laying, Lucre with Blee, Lucre milk, Putato-Chips, Luce Cherne CHADAR, Lucerne Milk, La Ponte de Potato-Chips, Luce Cherne Chière, Pasta Ben’s Mila Rice, Oranges bananas, iceberg lettuce and potatoes in redheads.

Of the 28 articles, 24 were the same price, at the central, January 19 and March 3. (And by the way, with each visit, I recorded regular prices rather than the prices of reduced members, because the latter did not apply to each article and not everyone is a member). Four items had different prices.

Michigan state professor David L. Ortega, food economist, said that an American president has little direct control over the prices of the grocery store, “especially in the short term”. One way in which a president can influence prices, added Ortega, is to create more stability.

(David Zalubowski / Associated Press)

Thomas’ bagels, six in a bag, went from $ 5.79 to $ 5.89.

A dozen large eggs from Lucerne Grade AA increased from $ 7.49 to $ 9.99.

A box of 8.9 ounces of cheerios increased from $ 5.99 to $ 5.29.

And navel oranges increased from $ 1.29 per book to $ 0.99.

The total tab when Biden was president – $ 146.03.

Total Trump – $ 147.63.

Makes you want to throw eggs, but they are too expensive.

Steve.lopez@latimes.com