Average Price: Ground Beef, 100% Beef (U.S.)

## What this measures

The average price urban shoppers paid for ground beef, 100% beef, per pound, across U.S. cities, in dollars, from the prices BLS collects for the Consumer Price Index. Monthly, not seasonally adjusted.

## Why it matters

Average prices put grocery inflation in dollars on a shelf item people know, which an index cannot. Single foods swing far more than the food-at-home index: eggs with bird flu, beef with the cattle cycle, coffee and cocoa with harvests.

## How to read it

Compare the same month across years or the change since a base month; one item can move by a quarter in a few months. BLS published no October 2025 prices (the 2025 lapse in appropriations), so that month has no reading; charts break the line there rather than join September to November.

## What it does not say

It is an average across the sizes, brands and stores in the CPI sample, not the price at any one store, and BLS warns that average prices are less precise than the index for the same item. It is not adjusted for quality or package size changes.

## Source

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Average Price Data (APU0000703112), via FRED. Public domain.