Shoppers with fraying budgets often turn to Walmart for relief. The retail giant is well known for its low prices.
So, how did shoppers looking for bargains fare at Walmart during 2024? For six years, National Public Radio has shopped at a Walmart in Liberty County, Georgia, to keep a close eye on the ups and downs of pricing .
In December, NPR again sent loyal staffers to check out prices at Walmart. Armed with a list of 96 items from “virtually every Walmart aisle,” the shoppers focused on the price per unit of each item, finding that roughly half of the items had not budged in price since December 2023.
While 27 products — such as eggs, ground beef and laundry detergent — became more expensive, 21 items saw price cuts.
Here are the grocery items that got cheaper, with how much they declined in price:
- Bananas: -35.1%
- Quaker Oats: -26.1%
- Great Value pink salmon fillets: -25%
- Boneless pork chop: -23.4%
- Red seedless grapes: -20.2%
- Garland garlic bulbs: -19.6%
- Blue Diamond roasted, salted almonds: -14.4%
- Goya canned black beans: -12%
- Kings River navel oranges: -11.5%
- Sweet potatoes: -5.6%
- Thomas’ plain bagels: -5%
- Domino sugar: -1.8%
- Basin Gold white onions: -1.6%
Despite the lower costs in 2024, prices still remain around 25% higher at this Walmart than they were in mid-2019, NPR says. That is roughly in line with data from the federal government that shows that U.S. prices jumped 23% over the same period, according to NPR.
Here are the items with the biggest increases in price per unit, with how much they went up:
- Tropicana orange juice: 13.2%
- 2% milk: 19.2%
- Maxwell House Colombian ground coffee: 21.1%
- Ground chuck beef: 33.4%
- Vaseline petroleum jelly (cocoa butter): 40.2%
- Eggland’s Best eggs : 46.4%
For those hoping prices will return to the pre-pandemic glory days, NPR offers a sobering warning:
“Big price increases are rarely followed by equally big price decreases, historically. That’s because seismic shifts in the global economy cannot simply be undone.”
If higher prices have you worried, check out “5 Ways Retirees Can Lower Their Inflation Risk so Their Savings Last.”
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