Over the Past 100 Years, Food Prices Have Fallen By 82%

Do a Google search for "rising food prices" and you'll get 391,000 results, while a search for "falling real food prices" gets about 144 results, a ratio of 2,700:1. Maybe we get so focused on the most recent year or two of rising prices for products like eggs that we lose sight of the longer term, historical trends.

The chart above shows the real, inflation-adjusted prices of eggs (in 2008 dollars), annually back to 1890. The price we're paying today for eggs (in real dollars) is about 1/7 of the price 100 years ago, a decline of 85% compared to the price our grandparents, great-grandparents or great-great grandparents paid in the early 1900s.

And it's not just egg prices that have fallen over the last 100 years. Grocery prices in general fell in real price by 82% between 1919 and 2007, measured in the number of hours worked (9.5 to 1.7 hours, another way to adjust for inflation) to purchase a 12-item basket of groceries, according to the Dallas Fed (see graph below).

Comments

[Pj568:]

This is meaningless, an apples to oranges comparison.
Over the last 100 years ago there has been severe changes in industrialization levels, population shifts from a rural to a city environment and who knows what else.

2008 Aug 26 01:36 PM

[rob d:]

so people took that spare income and spent it on other things...so if food prices go up, they still have no money left over....100 years ago - no cable, cell phone, internet, car, or other things that are now considered necessities. now, how about discretionary items? y⮐ou know, the stuff that most of the economy is based upon? what gets cut when food prices go up? cut the permabull nonsense...it will get better, we know, but stop trying to make everyone think it is a "mental" recession...you look foolish, professor.

2008 Aug 27 08:49 AM

[TLK:]

To me, this was a good reminder of how lucky, and relatively wealthy, we Americans are. Our quality of life is dramatically better than past generations (at least in terms of all the crap we own) but we seldom take time to realize it.

2008 Aug 27 09:38 AM

[User 232593:]

for those losing their job & home i dont think its a better life.also i dont think these comparisons mean much as its a different world.im surprised a prof. would offer this info.but then a prof. today doesnt mean much.

2008 Aug 27 11:48 AM

[CLH:]

Yes our life is much better every year. However you would never know it to hear the whinners and others of a leftest bent..

2008 Aug 28 12:28 AM