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Historical U.S. prices, 1980–2025

What Americans paid, on average, for 41 everyday things in every year from 1980 to 2025: fuel and electricity, bread and flour, meat and eggs, fruit and vegetables, coffee, beer and wine.

Every number comes from the average price data the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes each month, averaged here over each calendar year. Each item has its own page with a year-by-year table, a chart and a short account of how its price moved: the decade averages, the highest and lowest years, and the sharpest one-year swings. Each year has a page too, listing everything the data covers for that year side by side.

Two ways to read a price

Prices here appear two ways. The first is the average price at the time, the number a shopper saw on the shelf. The second is the same price in 2025 dollars, adjusted with the Consumer Price Index so that a price from 1980 and a price from 2025 can be compared fairly. When an item’s adjusted price has risen, it has outpaced inflation; when it has fallen, it has become cheaper in real terms even if its sticker price went up.

Energy

Bread, grains and baking

Meat and poultry

Eggs and dairy

Fruit and vegetables

Pantry and snacks

Coffee, beer and wine

Prices by year

1980 · 1981 · 1982 · 1983 · 1984 · 1985 · 1986 · 1987 · 1988 · 1989 · 1990 · 1991 · 1992 · 1993 · 1994 · 1995 · 1996 · 1997 · 1998 · 1999 · 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008 · 2009 · 2010 · 2011 · 2012 · 2013 · 2014 · 2015 · 2016 · 2017 · 2018 · 2019 · 2020 · 2021 · 2022 · 2023 · 2024 · 2025

For teachers

These pages are free to use in class, with no account and no sign-up. A year page makes a quick warm-up on inflation and purchasing power: ask students to guess a price before revealing it, then compare it in 2025 dollars. The game below turns the same data into five guesses a day.

Gaps in the data

A year appears on these pages only when the Bureau published at least nine months of prices for it. 18 of these series start after 1980, 6 end before 2025 and 11 skip years in between. Each page says so where it happens, and no missing year is filled in or estimated.

Average prices are U.S. city averages from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (average price data), averaged over each calendar year. A year is included only when the Bureau published at least nine months of prices for it. Values in 2025 dollars use the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) annual average. See how Sticker Shock builds its data. Figures may contain errors and are not financial advice.