Price evolution of chocolate chip cookies in the United States

1. Relevance of the price of chocolate chip cookies
2. Price evolution of chocolate chip cookies
   1. Absolute price of chocolate chip cookies per year
   2. Inflation adjusted price of chocolate chip cookies per year
3. Conclusion
4. FAQs about chocolate chip cookies's price in the the United States
5. Price evolution table and full chart

Price evolution of chocolate chip cookies

The average price of a pound of chocolate chip cookies between 1980 and 2023 was $2.83, with the lowest price being $1.58 in 1980 and the highest $5.23 in 2023 (at least within the timeframe we have data for).

Yes, I'm sorry to say, but chocolate chip cookies in the United States has never been as expensive as it is today. And that's not all. I promise I'm not trying to depress you here, but in 2023 chocolate chip cookies also saw they biggest price increase since we have data, jumping $0.67, or 14.69% from the previous year. Let's see how the price evolves from here. Hopefully, it will have reached a peak and will estabilize, or even decrease, in the next few years.

Let's take a closer look at the data in the tables below:

Absolute price of chocolate chip cookies per year

Our data source for this article was: U.S Bureau of Labor Statistic .

The absolute price of chocolate chip cookies in the the United States has gone from $1.58 in 1980 to $5.23 in 2023. That's an absolute increase of $3.65, or 231.01% in a period of 43 years. (go to the next section for inflation-adjusted values).

This increment has not been linear though. During this period of 43 years the price of chocolate chip cookies actually decreased year over year 10 times, in 1993, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2019.

The biggest absolute price decrease in the price of a pound of chocolate chip cookies was in 1993, when the price dropped by $-0.31, or -11.19%. The biggest price increase was $0.67, or 14.69% in 2023.

With the price increasing most years, it comes as no surprise that the price of chocolate chip cookies today is higher than what it used to be some years ago.

Inflation-adjusted price of chocolate chip cookies per year

As accurate as the information above might be, it can also be somehow deceiving. This is because the value of money changes over time, usually decreasing. That means that $1 of today's money cannot buy as much as $1 in the past. This phenomenon is called inflation, and can make it complicated to compare historical pricing data. Luckily, we can adjust for it and calculate what a dollar value of the past would be equal to in today's money.

So let's not take a look at the evolution of the price of chocolate chip cookies in the the United States, in that same 43 years period between 1980 and 2023, but adjusting prices to inflation (aka. in today's money).

When we adjust for inflation, we see that the price of chocolate chip cookies actually peaked in 1980, when it cost $6.71 (in today's money), and was at its lowest in 2007 when it sold for $4.13.

The biggest drop in adjusted price happened in 1993, when the inflation-adjusted price dropped by $-0.87 (-13.88%). The biggest spike in adjusted price was in 2022 when it jumped by $0.47 (9.98%).

The average price of chocolate chip cookies during this period of time, adjusting for inflation, has been $5.12, and the most current price of $5.23 is 2.15% above that average.

Conclusion

The absolute price of chocolate chip cookies has increased by $1.59 ($43.68%) in the last decade, and $3.65 (231.01%) since 1980. But that comes as no surprise, as prices always tend to increase over time due to inflation.

Now, as we've explained earlier, the absolute price of a product does not necessarily represent its affordability fairly. For that we have to look at its inflation adjusted price, or in other words, the price evolution in today's money.

When we look at the inflation-adjusted price of chocolate chip cookies, we see that it has varied ± 25.21% over this period of time, and is currently 2.19% more expensive than the average over these years , yet 22.94% cheaper than in 1980! .

So not everything is bad news after all!

Even at $5.23 (per pound), chocolate chip cookies is actually more afordable in 2023 than it was in 1980.

So if there had to be one single take away from this article it would be this: The average person has to make less of an economic effort to purchase chocolate chip cookies today than in the past.

We can consider that the price of chocolate chip cookies has remained maily stable over this period of time. It sure had some ups and downs, like in 2023 and 1993, but considering the magnitude and complexity of the global economy its price has mainly kept up with inflation.

FAQs about the price of chocolate chip cookies in the the United States