# Egg price history US retail egg prices back to 1980, nominal and adjusted into today's dollars, plus the BLS eggs price index back to 1943 for the years before the dollar series began _Data through Jul 2026 · source last checked Aug 20, 2026 · page revised Aug 21, 2026_ > Adjusted for inflation, a dozen large eggs cost about $3.77 in July 2026 dollars back in January 1980, versus $2.19 today: even after the recent spikes, eggs are cheaper in real terms than they were then. ## Largest 12-month increases in the US retail egg price (BLS APU0000708111) | Month | Price/doz | 12-month change | | --- | --- | --- | | January 2023 | $4.82 | +150.0% | | December 2022 | $4.25 | +137.7% | | February 2023 | $4.21 | +110.0% | | November 2022 | $3.59 | +108.9% | | March 2025 | $6.23 | +108.1% | | February 2025 | $5.90 | +96.8% | | January 2025 | $4.95 | +96.4% | | October 2022 | $3.42 | +87.8% | | September 2024 | $3.82 | +85.0% | | August 2022 | $3.12 | +82.3% | ### Price received by farmers for eggs, cents per dozen, 1950-1981 (USDA Agricultural Statistics). A farm-gate price, not a store price. | Year | Price received by farmers | In 2024 dollars | | --- | --- | --- | | 1950 | 36.3¢ | $4.73 | | 1951 | 47.7¢ | $5.76 | | 1952 | 41.6¢ | $4.92 | | 1953 | 47.7¢ | $5.59 | | 1954 | 36.6¢ | $4.28 | | 1955 | 39.5¢ | $4.63 | | 1956 | 39.3¢ | $4.54 | | 1957 | 35.9¢ | $4.01 | | 1958 | 38.5¢ | $4.18 | | 1959 | 31.4¢ | $3.38 | | 1960 | 36.0¢ | $3.82 | | 1961 | 35.5¢ | $3.73 | | 1962 | 33.6¢ | $3.48 | | 1963 | 34.5¢ | $3.53 | | 1964 | 33.8¢ | $3.42 | | 1965 | 33.7¢ | $3.36 | | 1966 | 39.1¢ | $3.78 | | 1967 | 31.3¢ | $2.94 | | 1968 | 34.0¢ | $3.07 | | 1969 | 40.0¢ | $3.42 | | 1970 | 39.1¢ | $3.16 | | 1971 | 31.4¢ | $2.43 | | 1972 | 30.9¢ | $2.32 | | 1973 | 52.5¢ | $3.71 | | 1974 | 53.2¢ | $3.38 | | 1975 | 52.4¢ | $3.05 | | 1976 | 58.3¢ | $3.21 | | 1977 | 55.6¢ | $2.88 | | 1978 | 52.2¢ | $2.51 | | 1979 | 58.3¢ | $2.52 | | 1980 | 56.3¢ | $2.14 | | 1981 | 63.1¢ | $2.18 | ### Before the dollar series: the BLS eggs price index by year, 1943 to 1980 (CUUR0000SEFH, 1982-84 = 100, full calendar years, annual means of the monthly index). The third column reads how far egg prices sat from their 1980 level. USDA and BLS published no average dollar price for eggs in these years. | Year | Eggs price index | vs 1980 | All-items CPI | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1943 | 57.6 | -35% | 17.3 | | 1945 | 58.5 | -34% | 18.0 | | 1950 | 61.8 | -30% | 24.1 | | 1955 | 62.8 | -29% | 26.8 | | 1960 | 59.1 | -33% | 29.6 | | 1965 | 54.8 | -38% | 31.5 | | 1970 | 65.5 | -26% | 38.8 | | 1975 | 82.4 | -7% | 53.8 | | 1979 | 90.2 | +2% | 72.6 | | 1980 | 88.6 | the dollar series starts | 82.4 | ## About Egg price history This page uses the US Bureau of Labor Statistics average retail price for a dozen grade A large eggs, US city average, not seasonally adjusted (series APU0000708111), monthly back to 1980. It is a survey mean of what shoppers pay across a mixed basket of conventional, cage-free and organic eggs, so it is not a conventional-only price and not the wholesale benchmark. The inflation-adjusted line restates every month's price in the most recent month's dollars using the headline Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers, all items (CUUR0000SA0): a month's real price equals its nominal price times the latest all-items CPI divided by that month's all-items CPI. For the rate of change over time, the eggs CPI is the better gauge than the dollar average, because BLS builds a price index to measure inflation while an average price can move simply because shoppers switched between cheaper and dearer eggs. Nominal and adjusted figures are both provided so a reader can see the sticker price and the real, inflation-adjusted price side by side. ### What BLS published before 1980 The dollar series stops at January 1980 because that is where BLS's average RETAIL price for eggs begins. Asked for 1979 or 1961, the BLS API returns the request as successful with no data, so a retail per-dozen figure for those years is not something this page is withholding: BLS never published one. A per-dozen price for those decades does exist, but it is a different measure from a different agency. USDA published a season-average price RECEIVED BY FARMERS for eggs, in cents per dozen, right through the period, and the table below carries it from 1950 to 1981. That is a farm-gate price, what producers were paid, and it is not interchangeable with a retail price, which adds grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin on top. The two series overlap for exactly two years and the gap is the point: in 1980 farmers averaged 56.3 cents a dozen while the BLS retail average ran near 84 cents. Those figures are transcribed from USDA's Agricultural Statistics yearbooks (1966 table 622, 1978 table 595, 1982 table 549), read page by page, using the latest revision wherever editions overlap. They are hardcoded rather than fed in because USDA's own Quick Stats database only reaches back to 1996 for this series; everything earlier exists only as scanned publications. That is also why the chart and the CSV on this page still begin where the BLS retail series does. What does exist for the earlier decades is the eggs price index, the Consumer Price Index for eggs, US city average, not seasonally adjusted (CUUR0000SEFH). It runs monthly from February 1943 on the 1982-84 = 100 base and it is the series in the table below. An index answers a different question than a price: it says how much egg prices moved between two dates, not what a dozen cost on either one. We do not convert the index into pre-1980 dollars, and it is worth saying why, because the arithmetic is easy and the result is wrong. Rebasing the eggs index onto the 1980 average price and running it backwards can be tested on the 1980 to 1990 stretch where both series exist and the answer is known. Over those 132 months the reconstruction misses the published price by 8.4% in the median month and by as much as 39% in the worst one, and the same method applied to 2020 lands 59% high. The two series diverge because the index weights and quality-adjusts a whole category of eggs while the average price tracks one item, grade A large. A reconstructed 1975 price would carry an error larger than most of the moves anyone would quote it to explain, so this page publishes the index as an index and leaves the dollars to the years BLS priced. ## Common questions ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1975? 52.4 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1975 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $3.05 in 2024 dollars. What does not exist is a matching retail figure: the Bureau of Labor Statistics average price for a dozen grade A large eggs in city stores begins in January 1980, so what a shopper actually paid in 1975 was never published as a national average. The two are different prices, and the farm-gate figure is always the lower one, because grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin all sit between them. For the direction of travel, BLS's eggs price index, monthly since February 1943, puts egg prices roughly 3.9 times higher today than their 1975 average. This page does not turn that index into pre-1980 dollars: back-tested on the years where both series exist, the arithmetic misses the published price by 8.4% in the median month and by as much as 39%. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1950? 36.3 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1950 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $4.73 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1950: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1955? 39.5 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1955 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $4.63 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1955: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1960? 36.0 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1960 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $3.82 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1960: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1961? 35.5 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1961 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $3.73 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1961: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1962? 33.6 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1962 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $3.48 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1962: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1963? 34.5 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1963 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $3.53 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1963: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1964? 33.8 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1964 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $3.42 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1964: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1968? 34.0 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1968 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $3.07 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1968: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1970? 39.1 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1970 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $3.16 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1970: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1973? 52.5 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1973 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $3.71 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1973: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### How much was a dozen eggs in 1976? 58.3 cents a dozen, the average price farmers were paid in 1976 (USDA, Agricultural Statistics), which is about $3.21 in 2024 dollars. That is USDA's farm-gate price, what producers received, and it is the only per-dozen figure published for 1976: the BLS retail average that this page charts does not begin until 1980, so no national store price exists for that year. A shopper would have paid more than the farm figure, by the cost of grading, cartoning, transport and the retailer's margin. The table above carries every year from 1950 to 1981. ### Is there a retail egg price before 1980? Not a national one. BLS's average retail price for a dozen grade A large eggs, the series this page charts, starts in January 1980. For the earlier decades the published per-dozen figures are USDA's prices received by farmers, a farm-gate measure rather than a store price, reported annually in its Chickens, Eggs and Broilers series. USDA's own Quick Stats database only carries that series back to 1996, so the older years live in scanned publications rather than in a machine-readable feed. ### How much did a dozen eggs cost in 1980? $0.84 on average across 1980, the BLS average retail price for a dozen grade A large eggs, US city average. In 2024 dollars that is about $3.21. The 2024 average was $3.17. The chart above carries every month, and the CSV on this page has the full series. ### How much did a dozen eggs cost in 1990? $1.01 on average across 1990, the BLS average retail price for a dozen grade A large eggs, US city average. In 2024 dollars that is about $2.43. The 2024 average was $3.17. The chart above carries every month, and the CSV on this page has the full series. ### How much did a dozen eggs cost in 2000? $0.91 on average across 2000, the BLS average retail price for a dozen grade A large eggs, US city average. In 2024 dollars that is about $1.66. The 2024 average was $3.17. The chart above carries every month, and the CSV on this page has the full series. ### How much did a dozen eggs cost in 2020? $1.51 on average across 2020, the BLS average retail price for a dozen grade A large eggs, US city average. In 2024 dollars that is about $1.83. The 2024 average was $3.17. The chart above carries every month, and the CSV on this page has the full series. ### How far back do US egg prices go? Two different series, two different starting points. The dollar price, what a dozen actually cost, starts in January 1980 and runs monthly to the present. The eggs price index, which measures the rate of change rather than a price level, starts in February 1943. Both are on this page: the chart and CSV carry the dollar series, the table below the chart carries the index for the decades before the price series began. ## About this data - Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Average Price Data + CPI-U - Series: Eggs grade A large per dozen (APU0000708111), deflated by CPI-U all items (CUUR0000SA0) - Basis: Consumer retail, mixed basket, cartoned; nominal and constant-dollar - Geography: US city average - Unit: US dollars per dozen - Calculation period: Monthly, 1980-present, nominal and inflation-adjusted - Last observation: Jul 2026 - Update frequency: Monthly --- Cite: Adjusted for inflation, a dozen large eggs cost about $3.77 in July 2026 dollars back in January 1980, versus $2.19 today: even after the recent spikes, eggs are cheaper in real terms than they were then (BLS average retail price, deflated by CPI-U all items). The Scramble. https://the-scramble.com/egg-price-history/us Canonical URL: https://the-scramble.com/egg-price-history/us