American families pinched by the recession that began in 2007 made cuts in their budgets on purchases ranging from cars to television to new homes. Less visible, but no less important, many families changed their food purchasing habits.
Research by the United States Department of Agriculture shows that food purchases declined by around 5 percent on average during the recession (the largest decline in 25 years). As the figure below illustrates, before the recession households in the highest income quintile spent about triple the amount of what the lowest quintile spent on food (the figures are unadjusted, so they do not account for family size, region, etc.). The largest cuts were in the middle of the income distribution (12 percent), and the top (6 percent), but the cuts in the bottom quintile were very slight (about 1 percent – more on this in a moment).