US grocery prices hit record high for family of four in 2025

view original post

Some online users discussed blame for the rising prices by mentioning U.S. President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden. Here’s what we know.

Published Nov. 21, 2025

Image courtesy of Getty Images

“);
}
else if(is_tablet()){
slot_number++;
document.write(“

“);
}

Claim:

In 2025, U.S. grocery prices hit a record high for a family of four with an average monthly cost of $1,030.

Context

This information originated from the Urban Institute organization, which cited a methodology of sourcing data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Labor Statistics and other reporting. The Urban Institute displayed on its own chart that the monthly cost rose to $1,030 in June 2025. The number remained the same through August. Information shown above the chart also noted the same metric was $1,020 in January 2025 — the month former President Joe Biden departed the White House for President Donald Trump’s second term.

A rumor that circulated online in November 2025 claimed U.S. grocery prices rose to a record high for a family of four, averaging $1,030 monthly.

On Nov. 18, the popular @NewsWire_US X account, managed by the Polymarket prediction platform, posted (archived), “U.S. grocery prices hit record high as monthly cost for a family of four reaches $1,030.”

Users shared the claim on Facebook (archived), Reddit (archived), Threads (archived) and X (archived), including some posts featuring a chart attributed to the research firm Arbor Research & Trading, LLC. The chart’s title read, “The Average Monthly Price of Groceries in the U.S. for a Family of Four,” displaying data for January 2017 through August 2025.

Some users responding to the posts discussed blame for the prices by mentioning U.S. President Donald Trump, who served his first term between January 2017 through January 2021, as well as former President Joe Biden, who occupied the White House between January 2021 and January 2025.

In short, the claim that U.S. grocery prices rose to a record-high level for a family of four and averaged $1,030 monthly was true.

This information originated from an October 2025 report created by the Urban Institute organization, compiled with data running from 2017 through August 2025. The organization’s methodology sourced figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Labor Statistics and other reputable reporting, and displayed on its own chart that the monthly cost rose to $1,030 in June 2025. The figure remained the same through August. Information shown above the chart also noted the same metric was $1,020 in January 2025 — the month Biden departed the White House for Trump’s second term.

Snopes’ email correspondence with Arbor Research & Trading, LLC, Urban Institute and the Bureau of Labor Statistics appears later in this article.

Urban Institute’s report

Fritz Handler, CEO of Arbor Research & Trading, LLC, told us via email the group sourced grocery price data from Urban Institute, an organization with a website describing itself as “a nonprofit research organization that provides data and evidence to help advance upward mobility and equity.”

On Oct. 28, Urban Institute published a report documenting “data on Americans’ finances and everyday costs” in what the group labeled as its “American Affordability Tracker” data tool. The report, citing nominal costs, said U.S. average monthly grocery prices rose to $1,030 in June 2025 and remained at that same level through August — the latest month included in the documentation. The data also said that same metric was a mere $10 lower, at $1,020, when Trump assumed office for his second term in January 2025.

Urban Institute’s chart featured sources for its data including the Feeding America food bank charity organization’s “Map the Meal Gap” study and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The group also cited its own data tool, titled, “Does SNAP Cover the Cost of a Meal in Your County?”

(Urban Institute)

Urban Institute’s methodology

Gregory Acs, vice president for Urban Institute’s Tax and Income Supports Division, explained the methodology for gathering data, including sourcing figures from the Department of Agriculture’s Thrifty Food Plan:

Our data run from January 2017 through August 2025. Over that period, the highest nominal price for groceries is $1,030, which is the value for August 2025.

At the national level, we derive the August 2025 prices by taking the cost of groceries needed to purchase all the items specified in the USDA’s thrifty food plan (used to set the official poverty line) for a family of 4 (two adults both between the ages of 20 and 50—and two children—one between the ages of 6 and 8 and the other between the ages of 9 and 11). That national figure comes directly from USDA and is the cost of those groceries in June 2021. We use the consumer price index (CPI) for food prepared at home (from BLS) to adjust the nominal cost, deflating to January 2017 and inflating to August 2025.

Those are the nominal numbers. We also show “real” numbers where we adjust using the overall CPI. Sometimes the overall CPI is higher than the food at home portion, sometimes it’s lower. When looking at real grocery prices (adjusted for overall inflation), the price in August 2025 is comparable to the price in June 2020 ($1,030).

So that’s a long way to say that the price of groceries is at the highest level (both nominal and real) it’s been in the time period covered by our data (which starts in January 2017).

Bureau of Labor Statistics data

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ website features a page labeled “Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U)” and “Food at home in U.S. city average, all urban consumers, not seasonally adjusted.” That page, when adjusted to only display data from 2017 to 2025, displays a line similar to the flow of the charts provided by Arbor Research & Trading, LLC, and Urban Institute. (A BLS glossary defines “food at home” as “the total expenditures for food at grocery stores (or other food stores) and food prepared by the consumer unit on trips.”)

(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

When adjusted to view the oldest year on record of 1947 through 2025, the same BLS page displayed the observation, “Maximum Value: September 2025, 316.042,” indicating a record-high number. (These figures specifically reference the data set for 1982-1984 dollars, which is used as the base for the consumer price index.)

BLS spokesperson Cody Parkinson said via email, “Yes, the 316.042 index level (not seasonally adjusted) is the highest observed value in the series.”

Biden, Trump and inflation

On Nov. 15, The Associated Press (AP) reported that, in January 2021, Biden inherited an economy attempting to rebound from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — a virus that the World Health Organization documented with over 7.1 million reported deaths to date, including more than 1.2 million reported deaths in the U.S. The coronavirus led officials to close schools and offices, leading to mass layoffs and historic levels of government borrowing:

As the economy reopened, there were shortages of computer chips, kitchen appliances, autos and even furniture. Cargo ships were stuck waiting to dock at ports, creating supply chain issues. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 pushed up energy and food costs, and the increase in consumer prices hit a four-decade high that June. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rates to cool inflation.

Biden tried to convince Americans that the economy was strong. “Bidenomics is working,” Biden said in a 2023 speech. “Today, the U.S. has had the highest economic growth rate, leading the world economies since the pandemic.”

His arguments did little to sway voters as only 36% of U.S. adults in August 2023 approved of his handling of the economy, according to a poll at the time by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

As for Trump, he promised and failed on his campaign trail promise ahead of his 2024 reelection to enact policies — “fast” (1:55) and “immediately” (27:32) — to bring down grocery costs. Trump also falsely claimed in an Oct. 31, 2025, interview with “60 Minutes” that grocery prices had fallen in his second term.

The AP cited its own AP Voter Poll when reporting November 2025 election results that featured economic worries as voters’ dominant concern:

Voters in this month’s elections swung hard to Democrats over concerns about affordability. That has left Trump, who dismisses his weak polling on the economy as fake, floating half-formed ideas to ease financial pressures.

He is promising a $2,000 rebate on his tariffs and said he may stretch the 30-year mortgage to 50 years to reduce the size of monthly payments. On [Nov. 14], Trump scrapped his tariffs on beef, coffee, tea, fruit juice, cocoa, spices, bananas, oranges, tomatoes and certain fertilizers, saying they “may, in some cases” have contributed to higher prices.

For further reading, we previously confirmed that, in December 2024, following Trump’s reelection victory, he said of his campaign promise to bring grocery prices down, “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”

Jordan Liles is a Senior Reporter who has been with Snopes since 2016.