Price evolution of peaches in the United States

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

Before moving on, it is also important to highight dat our data set of prices for peaches has some gaps. From the 42 year period we will be looking at between 1981 and 2023 there are 3 years we do not have data for. These years are 2020, 2021, 2022. So please keep that in mind moving forward.

Price evolution of peaches

The average price of a pound of peaches between 1981 and 2023 was $1.33, with the lowest price being $0.55 in 1981 and the highest $2.38 in 2023 (at least within the timeframe we have data for).

Yes, I'm sorry to say, but peaches in the United States has never been as expensive as it is today. However, if you look at the inflation adjusted price, a pound of peaches actually peaked in 1999 at $2.70 (in today's money).

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

Absolute price of peaches per year

Our data source for this article was: FRED .

The absolute price of peaches in the the United States has gone from $0.55 in 1981 to $2.38 in 2023. That's an absolute increase of $1.83, or 332.73% in a period of 42 years. (go to the next section for inflation-adjusted values).

This increment has not been linear though. During this period of 42 years the price of peaches actually decreased year over year 17 times, in 1984, 1986, 1987, 1991, 1992, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020.

The biggest absolute price decrease in the price of a pound of peaches was in 2020, when the price dropped by $-2.07, or -100%. The biggest price increase was $0.31, or 29.52% in 1998.

So yes, it's had its ups and downs, but overall, price increases outweight the deceases, making peaches pricier than it used to be.

Inflation-adjusted price of peaches 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 peaches in the the United States, in that same 42 years period between 1981 and 2023, but adjusting prices to inflation (aka. in today's money).

When we adjust for inflation, we see that the price of peaches actually peaked in 1999, when it cost $2.70 (in today's money), and was at its lowest in 1984 when it sold for $1.76.

The biggest drop in adjusted price happened in 2020, when the inflation-adjusted price dropped by $-2.54 (-100%). Even when adjusting for inflation, the biggest price increase of peaches was still in 1998. However, the $0.31 jump actually felt like $0.55 to the consumer due, to the effect of inflation.

The average price of peaches during this period of time, adjusting for inflation, has been $2.33, and the most current price of $2.38 is 2.15% above that average.

Conclusion

The absolute price of peaches has increased by $0.71 ($42.51%) in the last decade, and $1.83 (332.73%) since 1981. 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 peaches, we see that it has varied ± 58.04% over this period of time, and is currently 2.32% more expensive than the average over these years .

Even when adjusting prices for inflation, peaches prices are still higher in 2023 than they were in 1981. But hey, it's only 2.32%, that's really not that much!

That being said, the current price of peaches might be somehow close to what it was in 1981 (in today's money, of course), but it has had so much volatily over the years that it's really hard to predict how it might evolve from here.

FAQs about the price of peaches in the the United States