Price history
Fifteen everyday U.S. items, priced every year from 1980 (1984 for beef and cheddar), from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Each page has the chart, the full table and the price in minutes of work.
Items
- Egg prices$0.84 → $4.25
- White bread prices$0.51 → $1.87
- Gas prices$1.25 → $3.26
- Ground beef prices$1.29 → $6.09
- Bacon prices$1.46 → $7.02
- Banana prices$0.34 → $0.65
- Cheddar cheese prices$3.07 → $5.84
- Ice cream prices$1.82 → $6.37
- Coffee prices$3.14 → $8.18
- Potato chip prices$2.04 → $6.71
- Chicken prices$0.71 → $2.06
- Chocolate chip cookie prices$1.58 → $5.05
- Tomato prices$0.67 → $1.84
- Sugar prices$0.43 → $1.02
- Orange juice prices$1.18 → $4.59
By year instead
For the whole basket in minutes of work, see the grocery work-time index. To see every item for one year, start from prices the year you were born. Only three of these items take more work to buy than in the 1980s; we name them in this piece.