Shrinkflation has affected one-third of grocery items, analysis finds. Here are the worst offenders.
CBSN
Americans continue to face higher prices after inflation shot up during the pandemic, in particular for essentials like food. But there's another, less noticeable, trend that's just as painful to your pocketbook eve when a product's cost looks stable: shrinkflation.
About one-third of roughly 100 common consumer products tracked by LendingTree have shrunk in size or servings since the pandemic. The worst offenders — household paper products, like toilet paper and paper towels, personal finance firm's analysis found.
More specifically, shrinkflation refers to scaling back the size of a product but charging the same amount as for the prior, larger portion. The upshot: People end up shelling out more money because they're getting less of a given product.
Princeville, North Carolina — On a single-lane road in Eastern North Carolina, surrounded by farmland, the congregation at Mark Chapel Baptist Church listens to a sermon on faith — and the importance of their vote as part of the "Black Belt," a stretch of majority-Black congressional districts in the South.
As Hurricane Milton slammed Florida's west coast, dozens of misleading or AI-generated videos spread on social media, racking up millions of views across platforms. One video, falsely said to show Milton, was actually filmed from a 2021 nor'easter in Massachusetts. Another montage, which had 1.5 million views on X, contained AI-generated footage. Julia Feerrar, an associate professor at Virginia Tech, said search engines are helpful in this instance: "Describing the image and adding the phrase 'fact check' to your search is often the fastest way to get more information and debunk misleading content." For example, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety published fact checks on AI-generated content and other misinformation that swirled online amid Hurricane Helene.