Print several trillion dollars to induce demand while shutting down industry worldwide off and on for two years, which reduces supply. It’s obvious this will cause prices to rise dramatically.
The prices are higher due energy prices rising in Europe and China, natural gas supply disruptions in Texas due to hurricanes and floods, and sanctions on Belarus. They are a driver of inflation, not caused by inflation.
Inflation is higher than it’s been in 40 years, and that timeframe includes several energy cost spikes, many of which were worse than the current spike.
Because any fixes for the broader inflation problem would have relatively little effect on this specific subset.
Is that ridiculous? Hmm. Maybe try again. We can afford to be generous, after all! Let's say that it's 10% due to monetary policy, and 265% due to other factors.
... Nope, we're still not really there.
Food purchases are way up since Covid.
Their "Net sales of US Foods from 2012 to 2020" wasn't, but it also said sales were down in 2020.
What makes comparisons tricky is people didn't eat out as much, so that cuts spending on some metrics. On others, commercial kitchens are more efficient and buy from wholesalers, so that lowers a different metric. But people consume fewer calories when cooking for themselves.
My main point is that for everyone but the lower 5%, I'd be surprised if they got a stimulus check and ate more calories because of it. I work in tech and make decent money. Maybe I buy the organic berries instead of the regular ones, but I'm not buying twice as many baskets because I have more money. I still only needed 3.