Post-pandemic changes in household food expenditure and affordability: Heterogeneity by income

Food affordability, yet existing evidence on how households across the income distribution have responded relies on aggregate statistics and descriptive reports. This paper uses newly released 2023 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data and two-way fixed effects regressions to examine changes in food expenditure and insecurity by income quintile between 2019 and 2023. Bottom-quintile households cut total food spending by about $510. Food inflation-adjusted results and models conditional on total food expenditure suggest this result may be driven by budget constraints rather than substitution between food categories, whereas Q2 through Q5 households substituted away from non-home toward at-home food. Food insecurity rose sharply for middle-income households: 7.1 and 3.6 percentage points more Q2 and Q3 households reported insufficient food, and 6.2 and 6.9 percentage points more reported an inability to afford balanced meals. These findings suggest that post-pandemic price increases disproportionately affected lower- and middle-income households, and that expansion of food assistance benefits may provide relief.