If they didn’t tighten their belts, Americans certainly pinched their pennies on food during the 2008-09 recession and the recovery that stretched far into this decade. Household spending on food fell by 7 percent between 2007 and 2010, and middle-income households continued to spend less on food through 2016 in inflation-adjusted dollars than they did before the recession, according to USDA economists.
“Middle-income households were particularly affected by the economic downturn — impacts that showed up in their food spending,” wrote economists Clare Cho, Jessica Todd, and Michelle Saksena in the USDA’s Amber Waves magazine. “Food spending … remained below pre-recession levels in 2016, and these households continued to allocate more of their food budgets to food at home rather than eating out.” By contrast, during the same period, food spending did not change significantly for either the wealthiest or the poorest households.
Total spending by all households on food, adjusted for inflation, did not return to pre-recession levels until 2015, “highlighting the severity of the prolonged recovery,” wrote the economists. Americans today are continuing to spend more of their food dollar on groceries rather than on restaurant meals or carryout food. “Some households may be continuing to struggle financially, or perhaps there has been a general shift away from eating out towards eating in. As grocery stores continue to expand their offerings of ready-to-take-home-and-eat foods, consumers may see these foods as a lower-cost, time-saving alternative to foods from restaurants and other eating-out places.”