Only three groceries got harder to buy since 1980
Of 15 U.S. groceries BLS has priced since the 1980s, only ground beef, eggs and bacon now take more minutes of work. Bananas take 58% less.
A price that went up five times sounds like a disaster. Whether it is depends on what happened to pay. The average U.S. hourly wage for production and nonsupervisory workers rose from $6.85 in 1980 to $31.34 in 2025, 4.6 times. A grocery got harder to buy only if its price rose faster than that.
Of the 15 items we track from BLS average price data, three did.
Minutes of work, first year vs 2025
Ground beef and cheddar start in 1984, the first full year BLS priced them. Everything else starts in 1980.
| Item | Then | 2025 | Price rise | Work change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pound of ground beef | 9.1 min | 11.7 min | 4.7x | +28% |
| Dozen large eggs | 7.4 min | 8.1 min | 5.1x | +11% |
| Pound of sliced bacon | 12.8 min | 13.4 min | 4.8x | +5% |
| Frozen orange juice | 10.3 min | 8.8 min | 3.9x | -15% |
| Pound of white bread | 4.5 min | 3.6 min | 3.7x | -20% |
| Half gallon of ice cream | 15.9 min | 12.2 min | 3.5x | -24% |
| Bag of potato chips | 17.9 min | 12.8 min | 3.3x | -28% |
| Pound of choc. chip cookies | 13.8 min | 9.7 min | 3.2x | -30% |
| Pound of whole chicken | 6.2 min | 3.9 min | 2.9x | -37% |
| Pound of tomatoes | 5.9 min | 3.5 min | 2.8x | -40% |
| Gallon of regular gas | 10.9 min | 6.2 min | 2.6x | -43% |
| Pound of ground coffee | 27.5 min | 15.7 min | 2.6x | -43% |
| Pound of white sugar | 3.8 min | 2.0 min | 2.4x | -48% |
| Pound of cheddar | 21.7 min | 11.2 min | 1.9x | -48% |
| Pound of bananas | 3.0 min | 1.2 min | 1.9x | -58% |
Beef, eggs and bacon
All three are animal products, and all three had a bad few years recently. U.S. cattle herds have been shrinking for years, which pushed ground beef past $6 a pound. Eggs went through two bird flu outbreaks, one in 2015 and a longer one from 2022, and averaged $4.25 a dozen in 2025. Bacon tracks pork prices, which climbed after 2020.
Even so, the margins are thin for two of them. Bacon takes 5% more work than in 1980. Eggs took less work than in 1980 in every year until 2025. In 2019 a dozen took about 3.6 minutes.
Everything else
Bananas are the clearest case. Their price less than doubled in 45 years while pay rose 4.6 times, so a pound now takes about a minute of work. Sugar, cheddar, coffee and gas all fell by more than 40% in work time.
Gas surprises people most, because the swings are so visible. In 2022 a gallon averaged $4.09. That took about 9 minutes of work, still less than the 11 minutes a $1.25 gallon took in 1980, because pay had risen faster than the price.
Every item, every year
Each item has its own price history page with the yearly price since 1980, the change from year to year and the minutes of work, plus a chart you can embed. The eggs page shows both bird flu spikes clearly.
Sources
More guides
- What groceries cost the year you were born, and what they cost in workEggs, bread, gas and coffee in 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010, from BLS average prices, and how many minutes of work each took then and now.
- Groceries take 24% less work than in 1980, and 12% more than in 2020A fixed basket of 12 U.S. groceries and gas took 112 minutes of work in 1980, 76 in 2020 and 86 in 2025. Both halves of the grocery argument are right.
- How to play Price Year, Open Range and Pricele 1000Three new daily price games: date a grocery receipt, give a price range, or score out of 1,000. The rules, the scoring and how to get better at each.
- How to compare two countries without fooling yourselfCost-of-living comparisons go wrong in the same six ways every time. What follows is a method that survives contact with a real decision.