Sioux Falls Food Dollars Not Going Far According to New Study

I love the fact that we can learn all kinds of things by keeping up with those personal finance guys at WalletHub. They have a new study out, this time dealing with how we spend our culinary cash (otherwise known as food dollars). Apparently here in Sioux Falls we're spending a lot, comparatively speaking!

National statistics indicate that we Americans spend 10% of our disposable cash on food and almost a third of every food dollar on restaurant services. They also reveal that although food prices in the U.S. are the lowest they've ever been, (I know--hard to believe!), many Americans still cannot afford to eat out and millions still struggle with hunger, period.

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They compared 150 of the most populated cities across the country by using two main dimensions: "Affordability and Diversity, Affordability & Quality". Then they compiled figures from sub-categories like; the cost of groceries, sales and/or food taxes, average beer and wine prices, number of restaurants per 100,000 residents, access to healthy food options, number of grocery stores, butcher shops & gourmet specialty shops per 100,000 residents, fast-food vs full-service restaurants and many more.

They get their data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Council for Community & Economic Research, The Centers for Disease Control (that one I don't get!), Yelp.com and others. They mash it all together and using a super-secret formula, (Not really, but who can understand it? Not me!) come up with a ranking for all 150 cities.

Sioux Falls ranked 136th overall and the results for us weren't that great:

Gastronomic Affordability in Sioux Falls

(1=Best; 75=Avg.)

• 101^st – Cost of Groceries
• 95^th – Number of Restaurants per Capita
• 81^st – Ratio of Full-Service Restaurants to Fast-Food Establishments
• 104^th – Number of Gourmet Specialty-Food Stores per Capita
• 67^th – Number of Craft Breweries & Wineries per Capita
• 101^st – Number of Coffee & Tea Shops per Capita
• 111^th – Number of Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Shops per Capita
• 142^nd – Number of Grocery Stores per Capita

To see their complete report click here.