Given we're talking about why salaries are higher in the US, i think it's fair to point out the comparison of items that are possible to buy in a normal supermarket here. I searched for parmesan in Walmart and could only buy an entire wheel for ~$26/lb.
The people who I'm comparing myself to in the US strive to buy imported European food, so that's the comparison I'm going to end up making.
Even basic things like fresh vegetables and fresh meat far more expensive than they are in supermarkets here.
And groceries. I was _shocked_ at how expensive buying fresh food was in the US, and funnily enough, the most desired food was imported from the EU and was far more expensive. Here's a great comparison - aged parmesan cheese from the supermarket [0] [1] is $11/lb here, or $17+tax in the US. This is the same for a huge amount of ingredients too; cheeses, meats + veg. I helped a friend do his grocery shopping in a trader joes, by my best guess it was twice the price of my shop in Sainsbury's (a middle-of-the-road supermarket)
The quality of American produce is surprisingly mixed. For a lot of it, you've got to shop around and maybe pay a little more to get the same as baseline normal quality in large parts of Europe. I don't know why, but that's how it is. OTOH we have lots and lots of very cheap, kinda bad produce. So there's that.
It's also possible to live among wheat fields and not be able to buy good bread for anything less than insane luxury food prices here. All I can figure is our ovens cost more to run? I mean I know it's not that but I can't figure out WTF else could be the problem.
Decent cheese is also a lot more expensive—but again, we have lots and lots of fairly bad but very cheap options. And the cheaper end of our wine market is (much) less consistently good than in, say, France.
Sorry this is just flat out incorrect. There is no comparison between the quality of a random US supermarket and an out of be way village shop anywhere’s in Europe. The US supermarket is superior in every way, especially in both quality and selection. I can go to a local supermarket and buy grass-fed, high-quality beef grown 5 miles away, organically grown avocados, and fair-trade coffee from a local coffee roaster in the same store and it’s cheap. Europeans for some reason have this idea in their mind that’s everything in the US is Walmart and McDonalds, even while the quality of their own food greatly suffers.
And just for fun I’ve lived and worked throughout the US, Europe,and Asia.
I was really surprised how expensive basic food is in New York compared to UK[0]. Things like fruit, veg, cheese, cereal were more than twice the price. The only things that were cheaper were hotdogs and hotdogs buns. Eating out is very expensive in scandinavia but I don’t think supermarket food is expensive compared to the US.
[0] Prices at the large supermarkets don’t vary much if at all between shops across the UK
My favorite thing to do when I visit a different country is tour the grocery store. I compare the price of milk, bread, eggs, cheese, and beef.
In Italy and London I have found that similar quality products are much more expensive usually. However the stores caring more high quality local foods, and less of the cheap processed foods that we American's love.
Huh? I was in California and food is not expensive at all in the supermarket there. And I'm not talking about Aldi quality food but organic.
Especially when you consider how much richer Californians are VS Europeans.
Maybe it's because California has got a performant agriculture.
Mostly housing, healthcare and education are more expensive in the US but consumer prices are generally significantly lower. Check numbeo.
According to NationMaster[1], we're the 43rd most expensive. Notables that are more expensive than the U.S. include Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, France, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Japan, Belgium, the UK, Canada, Austria, Italy.
Notables with cheaper groceries are Germany, Netherlands, Greece, Spain, Poland, Ukraine.
Because grocery prices across EU/Europe vary by a huge margin, and going out for a drink /coffee even more. Nowadays things are getting similar due to poor countries getting better, and old powers stagnating in comparison.
Logistics and what is produced nearby used a big factor (also local brands, different countries used to mean different brands), again due to trade agreements (trade between EU countries) and infrastructure improvements.
So you won't find a lot a price and availability difference in what you used to find pre-euro, but there's still some difference, just not as choking.
Also, USA salaries tend on the bigger side, and USA food is also cheaper do to loads of subsidies and bad regulation(so, sugary, worse quality checks, but cheaper), corporation centralisation (EU is made of different countries which used to mean different food corps as well), so the grocery experience is not as relevant.
Per the article, American supermarkets have the same profits (~2%) as cheaper European ones, but much higher fixed costs. Some of these costs are the cost of inputs, but that only explains so much; wholesale food prices are much lower than what you pay at the grocery store.
Political wing-nuttery aside, I don't see who you think is the culpable party here.
Trade is a boogeyman - most countries import way more of their food than America does. The UK import 46% of its food, the US imports 15%.
It's probably not farmers, since most of them seem to be going bankrupt. There is a guy that's made $4 billion on pistachios and almonds, but that's not exactly your food staples.
I don't think it's the truckers, I haven't heard of anyone making a killing driving produce around.
The article has some good theories as to why it might in fact be the grocery store's fault. America's stores are larger, stock more goods, have higher-touch service, and sell fewer store brand products. This gives them a higher cost structure, resulting in high food prices without high profits. There are grocery stores in America with lower prices, places like Trader Joe's, which sell a smaller selection of store-brand goods in smaller stores at lower prices.
Fruit and vegetables seem to be weirdly expensive in the US, for some reason; meat and processed foods are much cheaper than they are in Western Europe, though. It makes sense that meat would be cheaper (considerably different and mostly lighter regulation on animal husbandry and slaughter, plus the whole corn subsidy thing) but the expensive vegetables never made sense to me.
My experience of grocery shopping in the US and europe is that the US is substantially more expensive, and €5 per day is probably equivalent in purchasing power to $10-12 per day which is definitely more doable. $150 is more than the average family of 4's shopping bill in the UK
Worth mentioning as well that the cost of meat in an EU grocery store is comparable to that in the US. However you aren't likely to find the super-cheap 'CostCo/WalMart' class of meat in the EU.
It wouldn't surprise me if the fast food industry in the US has basically driven the smaller producers out of business by giving the larger producers better efficiencies.
You are saying that we don't do food better because it's more expensive? But it's expensive to you. The local purchasing power in Denmark is higher than it in the US. To Danish people (such as myself), it doesn't feel expensive. Although, it doesn't feel cheap either. We are quite aware that we have the third highest cost of living.
But seriously, food being expensive is not the same as not doing food right. The few times I've been in the US, I've always been disappointed about the food available in supermarkets. It's hard to find stuff such as good milk or butter.
The people who I'm comparing myself to in the US strive to buy imported European food, so that's the comparison I'm going to end up making.
Even basic things like fresh vegetables and fresh meat far more expensive than they are in supermarkets here.
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