A out last month found that 8 in 10 registered voters said the economy is their top issue in the election.
And there鈥檚 nothing like a trip to the grocery store to remind you of inflation.
鈥淲e鈥檙e charging $4 for the white eggs, which are grocery eggs,鈥� says Dianne Shenk, owner of Dylamato鈥檚 Market, a small, successful grocery store in Pittsburgh鈥檚 Hazelwood neighborhood,.
鈥淲e鈥檝e been charging $6.25 a dozen for the brown eggs from our farmer for the last four years.鈥�
NPR reached out to Datasembly Inc., a market intelligence company that tracks billions of grocery item prices every week. They gave us a year鈥檚 worth of grocery price data for places all over the country.
Then we went to talk to voters about the data in Pittsburgh, figuring if the battleground state of Pennsylvania is the presidential campaign鈥檚 whirlwind, Pittsburgh is the eye of the storm.
In Pittsburgh, the price of eggs is up nearly 40% in the last year, as bird flu decimated flocks of egg-laying hens. The price increase locally is among the highest across the nation鈥檚 50 top metro areas.
But, eggs aren鈥檛 the whole story. Prices for fish and poultry in the area have dropped, even as beef and pork are up by 4% to 5%.
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And the impact on Steelers fans鈥� tailgate parties has been minimal: The price of beer is up only 2%.
Nationally, grocery inflation : It鈥檚 up a bit over 1% in the last year. But that鈥檚 after an increase by more than a quarter since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Who鈥檚 better off?
Yodora Diamond, a former Hazelwood resident who returned just to shop at Shenk鈥檚 store, didn鈥檛 mind talking politics as Shenk鈥檚 husband rang up her order. She said she believes her grocery bill will be lower if former President Donald Trump is elected, because she thinks he will be better for fuel prices and farmers.
鈥淚 just know how it was when he was in office.鈥� Diamond said. 鈥淔inancially, I was much better.鈥�
Just down the street, Bruce and Emily Thornton own the 1:11 Juice Bar, which offers freshly pressed fruits and vegetables. They鈥檝e seen the cost of their ingredients increase.
Bruce says he disagrees with some Biden administration policies and will reluctantly vote for Vice President Harris, who he says 鈥渕ight be a little better鈥� for him and his family.
鈥淪he says she is willing to tax the upper class,鈥� he says, 鈥渁nd I believe that that is necessary for us as we move forward in our society 鈥� that there needs to be a real tax on people who are making all this money and then everyone else is kind of hurting.鈥�
Who鈥檚 hurting and who鈥檚 not when it comes to buying groceries might play into the presidential campaign鈥檚 sharp gender gap, in which Trump leads among men, and Harris among women.
A local at the University of Pittsburgh published earlier this year suggested a possible gender gap in the way people are personally affected by inflation. A higher percentage of women than men said they had trouble paying for food at least sometimes.
More women than men also said that recent inflation has had a large impact on them and their spending habits, says study author Sabina Deitrick.
鈥淚f it鈥檚 more likely a woman in a household who would be doing the shopping 鈥� it certainly has had a larger impact on spending habits for women than it has for men, according to our survey results,鈥� Deitrick says.
Grocery inflation is a kind of trip down Memory Lane
Of course, it鈥檚 not just the inflation numbers that could drive political attitudes and voter choices. It鈥檚 also the perception of inflation.
A few years ago, Harvard Business School economist Alberto Cavallo and some colleagues stopped shoppers outside grocery stores in Argentina and scanned their receipts. He then to the real inflation rates affecting what they bought.
The two didn鈥檛 align. Specifically, shoppers often overestimated increases in the prices of their products and underestimated past prices.
In forming their beliefs about inflation, Cavallo says, 鈥減eople do seem to put a lot of emphasis on things they can connect to 鈥� things that are in their basket.鈥� He says shoppers鈥� memories of past prices drive their perceptions of inflation and how they think it might affect them in the future.
The problem, he says: 鈥淭heir memories are really bad.鈥�
Shenk hears about prices from her customers every day but says they鈥檝e been showing some restraint when it comes to politics.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 have people going off about stuff. They鈥檇 like to but they kind of catch themselves and they're like, oh, well, you know, we're not going to talk politics.鈥�
Pollsters, on the other hand, have been talking politics pretty intensely for months now. And an calls Pennsylvania a 鈥渢oss-up.鈥�
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