Okay I don't live in America but I routinely make healthy meals for the local equivalent of under 5 bucks, which should be equivalent to about 10 in America according to a quick Google. And for the record I mean proper meals, not beans and rice. For example Walmart sells a pound of lentils online for two bucks, an onion for about one buck and half a dozen carrots (actual carrots, not six carrots) for less than three bucks, or about 50 cents per carrot. A pound of lentils, an onion and a carrot will make enough lentil soup for five days*, or about a $0.75 per dinner. For the full experience you can add half a disk of pita bread for $0.5 per meal, or you can substitute with tortillas for less than 15 cents per meal. We're still a full order of magnitude below the ten bucks limit. And this isn't poverty food; where I'm from people actually eat this because they want to. That said this does need a food processor (cheapest I could find was 6 bucks on Amazon but I didn't look very hard).

Point being: Maybe I'm missing something, but even with recent price increases there's plenty of good food one could have without getting any close to the 10 bucks limit.

*There's no need to make the five days' worth all at once; lentils will last for months outside the fridge.