Al Underwood used to drink a glass of orange juice almost every day with his breakfast at a nearby diner before the pandemic. After the price shot up to about $3 a glass last year, he cut back to once or twice a week. 

“Now it’s like, ‘forget the orange juice.’ That money will go toward the tip,” said Underwood, a 69-year-old optical wholesaler from Ridgeland, Miss. “Some things you just don’t need like you used to because prices are up.”