Is Illinois The Most Expensive State For Groceries?

Yo lo se. You’ve seen enough of these posts about Illinois’ problems, whether it’s high taxes, high numbers of people leaving, or whatever–that you’re probably thinking “Of course Illinois is the most expensive, or why would he write about this?”

Not to give the whole story away in the second paragraph, but Illinois is not the most expensive state in which to buy groceries. Surprisingly enough, we’re not even close.

Researchers At FilterBuy Calculated Annual Grocery Spending As A Share Of Total Spending For US Households State By State

Spoiler alert: you are spending a whole lot more now on groceries than you did just two years back no matter where you’re living.

Air filter company FilterBuy took the numbers made available from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis and crunched them to see which state’s residents are kicking out the most to fill their pantries, and as you might expect, which region of the country you happen to live in you have a lot to do with pricing.

• In dollars per capita, residents of New England pay the most in grocery spending at $4,061 per year.
• As a percentage of total consumer spending, the Southeast, Rocky Mountain, and Southwest regions have the highest levels of spending on groceries, which in part reflects lower incomes in these regions.

Here’s The Overall Good News: Illinoisans Are Way Down The List On Grocery Spending

And, by way down the list, I mean that Illinois sits at #45 out of 50 states. The FilterBuy study says that here in Illinois, we spend about 7.5% of our income on groceries, which averages out to around $3,277 per capita.

The state where the residents are really paying through the nose would be Hawaii. Hawaiians will shell out 10.1% of their income on groceries, with an average of $4,556 per capita.

The only Midwestern state that has less coming out of their pockets than we do in Illinois is Minnesota (7.1% and $3,145)

Click here to read the full study from FilterBuy.