It seems (maybe unsurprisingly) complex to put an exact number on the cost of a non-subsidized hamburger. However[1], the US gives $38 billion per year in beef

It seems (maybe unsurprisingly) complex to put an exact number on the cost of a non-subsidized hamburger. However[1], the US gives $38 billion per year in beef subsidies, and less than 1% of that amount for vegetable production. I found a couple links [2, eg] which claim $30-50 per pound of beef, if subsidies are removed. There are also some discussions to be found [3] of the cost of additional externalities. [edit : one can also try a simple-but-probably-wrong end-to-end estimate... Divide $38B by 325M to get $116 per person. Then divide by 57 pounds of beef consumption per person per year [4] to get ~$2 per pound. A quick search finds ~$4 per pound for ground beef, so one may naively guess the subsidies add up to at least a 33% discount.) [1] - https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cognitive-dissonance-around-animal-agriculture https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cogn... [2] - https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-the-average-pound-of-beef-subsidized-in-America-If-it-werent-for-that-subsidy-how-much-higher-would-the-market-prices-be https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-the-average-pound-of-beef-... [3] - https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/opinion/the-true-cost-of-a-burger.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/opinion/the-true-cost-of-... [4] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/183539/per-capita-consumption-of-beef-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183539/per-capita-consum...