Something to be grateful for

[randomq]

I did a little quick reading, and I see mobility, supply chain costs (stocking fresh food for lower volume areas, resulting in more spoilage), and competition. I'm not sure mobility applies, since Puna is so rural most people have to have some kind of transportation just to get groceries or potable water. And on the spoilage front Puna is not far away from the ports and hubs where fresh produce etc come in, and stores can adjust their volumes to meet demand, so I wouldn't think spoilage justifies raising prices on everything, especially shelf stable goods. That leaves competition, of which there is little. I would also think without competition, you charge as much as the market will bear, and a market with free money sloshing around can bear more.

The world bank did a study, which found an increase in prices correlated to SNAP/EBT:
https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated...4a42d7.pdf