[Occupymendocino] Rising-inequality-creates-a-new-poor-people-tax-at-the-grocery-store

[Richard Karch]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/05/20/1528889/-Rising-inequality-creates-a-new-poor-people-tax-at-the-grocery-store?detail=email&link_id=19&can_id=977dbddaeb03416d8c9bff93998b05cd&source=email-donald-trumpa-psychiatrists-opinion-and-concerns&email_referrer=donald-trumpa-psychiatrists-opinion-and-concerns&email_subject=donald-trump-a-psychiatrists-opinion-and-concerns

Poor people get hit with higher prices on basic purchases because they often live in neighborhoods without supermarkets and have to pay convenience store prices—or because they can’t afford to take advantage of sales and stock up on discounted products. It’s pretty well-known that these are ways it’s expensive to be poor (by people who care to know, at least, as Republicans seem well able to stay ignorant). But a Harvard graduate student’s research finds that the premium poor people pay on everyday retail goods goes still further. Xavier Jaravel:

… has found that prices are increasing by more than 2 percent a year on average for goods purchased by consumers with household incomes under $30,000, but by just 1.4 percent annually for those with incomes above $100,000. 

Why would that be? According to Jaravel, it starts with the fact that we all might buy the same basic category of product, but we don’t all buy the exact same thing. Higher-income people buy premium brands, and Jaravel:

… found that relatively few new products made it into stores that weren't premium goods. In other words, poorer consumers were more likely to be buying the same products from year to the next.

When a new product arrives on shelves, retailers typically have to discount the price of older products ...
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