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To live healthy lifestyles and support their families, most Americans depend on affordable access to groceries. To study perceptions of grocery price affordability, Ipsos surveyed 1,083 U.S. adults from February 25–26, 2025.
What they found: the older Americans are, the more likely they are to believe that groceries and food are more expensive than they were the year before. This held true across every category asked, including meat (82% of 55+ adults said prices seemed higher, compared to 57% of those ages 18-34) and dairy (90% of older adults, versus 71% of those 18-34). When asked about their overall grocery spending, there was a 26-point difference between the youngest and oldest Americans, with older adults more inclined to say their grocery bills have gone up.
Looking ahead, older Americans are more pessimistic: adults ages 55+ were more than twice as likely (44%) as those ages 18-34 (21%) to believe that the prices of goods and services will never come back down to former rates. So why does this matter? Older Americans often live on fixed incomes, so their belief that prices will continue rising may lead them to cut back on essential purchases like nutritious food, which can potentially harm their health. For grocers, food producers, and policymakers, these perceptions highlight the urgent need to address affordability and rebuild trust in price stability among underserved communities.
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