The grocery data makes no sense. Detroit has a median income of 40k and spends 3.78% on groceries? So that’s $126/month? How can that be true?
Looking at the methodology it seems like what it actually calculates is a fixed food basket compared to median income (so the specific number is arbitrary). But higher earning areas tend to buy more expensive items so in practice the difference will be less.
I don’t know why they didn’t just look at actual spending on groceries in each city?
Good catch! I think they could have just as easily told a compelling story by saying "here's how much a basket of goods costs around the country," but I can see why they wanted to adjust for purchasing power in each city.
An easy solution would have been to frame this as just a share of income spent on staples rather than groceries broadly.
The grocery data makes no sense. Detroit has a median income of 40k and spends 3.78% on groceries? So that’s $126/month? How can that be true?
Looking at the methodology it seems like what it actually calculates is a fixed food basket compared to median income (so the specific number is arbitrary). But higher earning areas tend to buy more expensive items so in practice the difference will be less.
I don’t know why they didn’t just look at actual spending on groceries in each city?
Good catch! I think they could have just as easily told a compelling story by saying "here's how much a basket of goods costs around the country," but I can see why they wanted to adjust for purchasing power in each city.
An easy solution would have been to frame this as just a share of income spent on staples rather than groceries broadly.