Price evolution of sugar in the United States

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

Price evolution of sugar

The average price of a pound of sugar between 1980 and 2023 was $0.50, with the lowest price being $0.43 in 1980 and the highest $1.04 in 2023 (at least within the timeframe we have data for).

Yes, I'm sorry to say, but sugar 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 sugar also saw they biggest price increase since we have data, jumping $0.26, or 33.33% 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 sugar per year

Our data source for this article was: Federal Reserve Economic Data .

The absolute price of sugar in the the United States has gone from $0.43 in 1980 to $1.04 in 2023. That's an absolute increase of $0.61, or 141.86% 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 sugar actually decreased year over year 12 times, in 1981, 1982, 1985, 1992, 1993, 1994, 2000, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019.

The biggest absolute price decrease in the price of a pound of sugar was in 1982, when the price dropped by $-0.05, or -12.5%. The biggest price increase was $0.26, or 33.33% in 2023.

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

Inflation-adjusted price of sugar 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 sugar 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 sugar actually peaked in 1980, when it cost $1.83 (in today's money), and was at its lowest in 2019 when it sold for $0.72.

The biggest drop in adjusted price happened in 1981, when the inflation-adjusted price dropped by $-0.33 (-18.03%). Even when adjusting for inflation, the biggest price increase of sugar was still in 2023. However, the $0.26 jump actually felt like $0.20 to the consumer due, to the effect of inflation.

The average price of sugar during this period of time, adjusting for inflation, has been $0.92, and the most current price of $1.04 is 13.04% above that average.

Conclusion

The absolute price of sugar has increased by $0.40 ($62.50%) in the last decade, and $0.61 (141.86%) 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 sugar, we see that it has varied ± 60.33% over this period of time, and is currently 13.04% more expensive than the average over these years , yet 71.15% cheaper than in 1980! .

So not everything is bad news after all!

Even at $1.04 (per pound), sugar 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 sugar today than in the past.

That being said, the current price of sugar might be somehow close to what it was in 1980 (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 sugar in the the United States