Voters Who Are Concerned About Inflation Are Mostly Concerned About Grocery Prices — and Overwhelmingly Support Taking Action Against “Shrinkflation”
By Rob Todaro
Eighty-eight percent of voters are at least “somewhat concerned” about inflation, including 58% of voters who are “very concerned,” according to a new survey from Data for Progress. This includes a majority of Independents (60%) and Republicans (68%) and a plurality of Democrats (47%) who say they are very concerned.
When voters who express any level of concern about inflation are then asked why they are concerned, majorities across party lines point to “the cost of food and groceries.” Fifty-seven percent of voters select the cost of groceries, followed by the cost of rent or home prices (19%) and the cost of utilities and home energy prices (12%). Notably, voters under the age of 45 choose the cost of rent or home prices at more than double the rate (29%) of voters who are 45 and older (14%).
All voters were then asked to assign blame for high grocery prices — and corporate price gouging rises to the top. In a split-sample test, we asked half of our respondents how much they blame “corporate food manufacturers raising prices to maximize profits,” while the other half were shown the same language about price gouging as well as named major food manufacturers. A slightly higher number of voters place “a great deal” of blame on “corporate food manufacturers raising prices to maximize profits” (46%), compared with “food manufacturers like PepsiCo, FritoLay, and General Mills raising prices to maximize profits” (44%).
Additionally, 40% of voters place a great deal of the blame on “grocery stores raising prices to maximize profits.” While 39% of voters place a great deal of the blame on “the policies of President Joe Biden,” this sentiment is driven primarily by Republicans.
When voters are asked about various proposals to address the high cost of food and groceries, the proposals are all broadly popular, particularly those that seek to confront shrinkflation, or “the practice of companies reducing product size while maintaining the same retail price.” More than 4 in 5 voters support “requiring companies to label products that have been reduced in size or weight” (83%) and “requiring grocery stores to display unit pricing, such as the price of a product per ounce or pound” (81%).
This polling demonstrates that a majority of voters who are concerned about inflation are particularly concerned about the cost of food and groceries, and they place most blame on practices related to corporate price gouging. Overwhelming majorities of voters also specifically support proposals to rein in shrinkflation and hold corporations accountable for raising food prices past the inflation rate.
Rob Todaro (@RobTodaro) is the Communications Director at Data for Progress.
Survey Methodology
From February 2 to 4, 2024, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,210 U.S. likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.