If you have experienced pain at the grocery check-out lately — and not because you still haven’t mastered ringing up your own produce — you’re not alone.

In fact, according to a WalletHub study, States Where People Spend the Most and Least on Groceries, West Virginia is second only to Mississippi for the cost of groceries as a share of median monthly household income — the average spending on groceries in the state is 2.57 percent of the median monthly household income. By contrast, the lowest percentage is in New Jersey, at 1.5 percent.

Ohio shoppers spend 2.19 percent of the median monthly household income. That is 12th in the country, meaning there is a lot of room for improvement in the Buckeye State, too. In Pennsylvania, the number is 1.98 percent, which is 29th in the country.

Because West Virginia was in the top five, WalletHub took a closer look. Here, the average cost of the 26 most common grocery items is $118.30. The state is ninth for the average price of eggs, 10th for potatoes, 16th for sausage, 21st for bananas, 25th for corn flakes and 29th for sugar.

(It may be telling that the item for which West Virginia’s prices fall in the bottom half of the country is sugar, but that is digging for another day.)

In addition to having some major grocery categories in which prices are higher in West Virginia, there is a larger problem. The percentage residents of the Mountain State spend is higher because they have the second-lowest median household income in the country at $55,217 per year.

WalletHub’s report noted “Reasonable prices on most groceries, unfortunately, can’t make up for low incomes in West Virginia.”

Though the rankings of Ohio and Pennsylvania did not warrant such thorough analysis, it is worth noting that across the Tri-State Area, the price of a trip to the grocery store could cause those in some households to make some difficult decisions.

“While grocery prices have gone up tremendously in recent years, the states in which people spend the greatest percentage of their income on groceries actually aren’t those with the highest prices,” said WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo. “Instead, the median incomes in these states are quite low, so even with reasonable grocery prices, residents end up shelling out a higher percentage of their earnings than people in states with more expensive products.”

Of course, experts recommend combating such challenges by making a prudent household budget, and there is certainly a place for that. But when there is too much month left at the end of the money and there are still mouths to feed, all the budgeting in the world won’t help. There must be money to budget.

Lawmakers still considering their priorities for the year must focus on efforts that support entrepreneurs and employers — large and small — in a way that lets them pay their workers enough to avoid thinking of groceries as a luxury.