FOOD PRICES IN RELATION TO INCOME LEVELS IN NEW YORK CITY.

In recent years many public outcries and expressions of indignation have focused on the claim that the poor pay more for the goods and services they buy than do their wealthier neighbors. A number of empirical studies have been undertaken to examine the specific question of the relative cost of food to low- and high-income consumers. Federal agencies, local governments, civic groups ad hoc consumer groups, the news media, and academic researchers have pursued these studies. This paper analyzes a comprehensive survey of food prices conducted in New York City during the summer of 1967 by the New York City Council on Consumer Affairs. The regression results of this study suggest that commodity-by-commodity with few exceptions, the prices of food items on retail merchants' shelves do not rise with decreases in neighborhood income. The cost of food may, in fact, be greatest to the poor, but a complete investigation of this issue will require data and discussion that go beyond the level of relative shelf prices in stores serving areas with different incomes.