THE EVERYDAY ECONOMY / 01Saved BLS edition / 2019-2025
Six familiar things. Two different totals.
Your grocery bill
has a memory.
The receipt remembers prices you no longer see on the shelf. Put the same few things in the basket, and see where the difference comes from.
Our illustrative basket went from $18.28 in June 2019 to$27.29 in June 2025. That is+$9.01, with exactly the same quantities.
Make the comparison yours Illustrative basket using national average prices. This is not your actual shopping bill or the official CPI.
01 / SAME BASKET, TWO DATES
What stayed in the bag?
Two pounds of bananas. Two pounds of white bread. A dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, four pounds of whole chicken, and a pound of ground chuck. This is a small shopping selection, not a weekly meal plan. Keeping it fixed lets us ask a narrow question: what changed when the prices changed?
THE RECEIPT YOU REMEMBER
June 2019
BLS national averages / USD
- Bananas2lb at$0.574 / lb$1.15
- White pan bread2lb at$1.280 / lb$2.56
- Large grade-A eggs1dozen at$1.203 / dozen$1.20
- Whole fortified milk1gallon at$3.054 / gallon$3.05
- Fresh whole chicken4lb at$1.590 / lb$6.36
- Ground chuck1lb at$3.951 / lb$3.95
TOTAL$18.28
Same quantities.Fixed basket.
THE SAME THINGS, ANOTHER DATE
June 2025
BLS national averages / USD
- Bananas2lb at$0.654 / lb$1.31
- White pan bread2lb at$1.864 / lb$3.73
- Large grade-A eggs1dozen at$3.775 / dozen$3.78
- Whole fortified milk1gallon at$4.029 / gallon$4.03
- Fresh whole chicken4lb at$2.086 / lb$8.34
- Ground chuck1lb at$6.103 / lb$6.10
TOTAL$27.29
Same quantities.Fixed basket.
THE DIFFERENCE+$9.01June 2019 to June 2025: $18.28 becomes $27.29, a change of +$9.01 (+49.3%). Fixed basket: 2 lb Bananas, 2 lb White pan bread, 1 dozen Large grade-A eggs, 1 gallon Whole fortified milk, 4 lb Fresh whole chicken, 1 lb Ground chuck. Illustrative basket using national average prices.
Same quantitiesJune 2019June 2025
Bananas2lb$1.15$1.31
White pan bread2lb$2.56$3.73
Large grade-A eggs1dozen$1.20$3.78
Whole fortified milk1gallon$3.05$4.03
Fresh whole chicken4lb$6.36$8.34
Ground chuck1lb$3.95$6.10
Try a different basket:
02 / FOLLOW THE EXTRA DOLLARS
The difference has ingredients.
Large grade-A eggs has the largest contribution by absolute dollar amount: +$2.57. Quantities matter as well as unit-price changes.
An expensive item does not necessarily explain the biggest increase. Each contribution multiplies the change in a unit price by the quantity in the bag. Four pounds of chicken give a modest change per pound four chances to affect the total; setting its quantity to zero removes its contribution entirely.
The item contributions are listed below.
- Large grade-A eggs1dozen+$2.57
- Ground chuck1lb+$2.15
- Fresh whole chicken4lb+$1.98
- White pan bread2lb+$1.17
- Whole fortified milk1gallon+$0.98
- Bananas2lb+$0.16
Signed dollar changes, ordered by absolute contribution. Equal contributions are tied. Each item links to its BLS unit-price series. Calculations use source precision; individually rounded lines may not add to the displayed rounded total.
Inspect all quantities, unit prices, and contributions
June 2019 / June 2025.Fixed basket: 2 lb Bananas, 2 lb White pan bread, 1 dozen Large grade-A eggs, 1 gallon Whole fortified milk, 4 lb Fresh whole chicken, 1 lb Ground chuck. Unit prices are USD per listed unit; costs and contributions are USD. Required missing prices make the complete comparison unavailable.| Item | Quantity | Before unit price | After unit price | Before cost | After cost | Contribution | Included |
|---|
| Bananas | 2lb | $0.574 | $0.654 | $1.148 | $1.308 | +$0.16 | Yes |
|---|
| White pan bread | 2lb | $1.280 | $1.864 | $2.560 | $3.728 | +$1.17 | Yes |
|---|
| Large grade-A eggs | 1dozen | $1.203 | $3.775 | $1.203 | $3.775 | +$2.57 | Yes |
|---|
| Whole fortified milk | 1gallon | $3.054 | $4.029 | $3.054 | $4.029 | +$0.98 | Yes |
|---|
| Fresh whole chicken | 4lb | $1.590 | $2.086 | $6.360 | $8.344 | +$1.98 | Yes |
|---|
| Ground chuck | 1lb | $3.951 | $6.103 | $3.951 | $6.103 | +$2.15 | Yes |
|---|
03 / HIGHER IS NOT THE SAME AS FASTER
Prices can ease.
The old total can stay out of reach.
For the quantities and scope currently selected, March 2025 cost $29.40and June 2025 cost $27.29: -7.2% over those three months.
That shorter comparison offers a useful counterexample to the idea of an uninterrupted climb. A price can fall from a recent peak while remaining above its earlier level. In the authored basket, a dozen eggs cost $6.227 in March 2025, $3.775 in June 2025, and $1.203 in June 2019. Those statements describe different comparisons, and all three can be true.
The first view below asks how many dollars the selected basket would cost in each month. The second asks how much that cost changed from the same month one year earlier. Its baseline moves every month. A smaller positive percentage means prices rose more slowly; only a negative percentage means this basket costs less than a year before. Neither says it returned to the 2019 price.
Monthly chart enhancements are loading. The saved data packet includes every monthly value.
The series covers January 2019 through December 2025. January-December 2018 supplies the first annual comparisons. A gap means a required price is unavailable. A missing baseline also makes the following year's percentage unavailable. No line bridges those gaps.
04 / WHAT THIS RECEIPT CAN REMEMBER
A national average is not your corner store.
You may buy different bread, find a sale, switch brands, or shop somewhere with quite different prices. The BLS series describe selected product categories across the U.S. city average. They do not describe a particular store, package, brand, or household. A pound of white pan bread is a weight, not a promise about the size of a loaf.
Changing the quantities changes the question. Removing meat tells us what this smaller selection would have cost at the listed average prices. It does not establish what a household saved, what it bought instead, or whether the basket meets anyone's dietary needs. Holding quantities fixed makes the arithmetic interpretable, but it deliberately leaves those shopping decisions outside the comparison.
Theofficial Consumer Price Indexhas a broader measurement framework. This six-item calculation does not reproduce that index or its treatment of changing products and quality. These data also do not establish why prices changed. A contribution explains the arithmetic of this receipt, not the cause of a price increase.
The answer is narrower, and useful on its own: June 2019 to June 2025: $18.28 becomes $27.29, a change of +$9.01 (+49.3%). Fixed basket: 2 lb Bananas, 2 lb White pan bread, 1 dozen Large grade-A eggs, 1 gallon Whole fortified milk, 4 lb Fresh whole chicken, 1 lb Ground chuck. Illustrative basket using national average prices. You can inspect every ingredient of that difference, change the selection, and keep the comparison you actually made.
05 / KEEP THE RECEIPT
Same comparison.
Wherever you take it.
The link remembers all six quantities, both dates, and any subset choice. Images keep their source date and limitations; the data packet also keeps the original price precision.
Open a link to this exact comparisonSVG uses the selected width. PNG exports at 2x: 780px phone or 1520px print.
A saved image cannot update itself. Reopen the source link to see edition and correction notes. These are historical observations retrieved on2026-09-05 UTC, not a live price feed.