I never understood this. If something that I routinely bought for years at the grocery store was .99 cents and is now always $1.49 —in my eyes that’s a 50% increase. That kind of price jump is what I am seeing across the board. Not nickels and pennies.
Another thing that is happening quite frequently nowadays, that not many people have noticed, is that manufacturers are shrinking their package sizes while still charging the same dollar amount as for the old sizes. Clorox now comes in a 3/4 gallon bottle instead of a gallon bottle...but with no price decrease. Breyer’s Ice Cream now comes in a 3-pint container instead of a half-gallon. A “quart” of cottage cheese is now 24 ounces.
I think actual inflation is a lot higher even than the 8 or 9 percent claimed in the article. I’d say about double that.
More like 80%. You probably paid $.99 for a pound of something that now comes in a 12 oz. size.