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https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000709112 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000709112 Price of a gallon of milk over time
by mkmk 3y ago
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000709112 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000709112
Price of a gallon of milk over time
- arcticbull 3y agoYou should really use a basket of goods, there are a lot of reasons why a single commodity may change in price. This is kind of why we have CPI and PCE. Here's real-dollar food PCE. It's up about 38% since 2007 or just over 2% annualized increase above inflation. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFXARX1M020SBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFXARX1M020SBEA
- suyula 3y agoSeems more reasonable to use milk when talking about Starbucks.
- arcticbull 3y agoI would probably use coffee... or at least a blend of their inputs based on quarterly filings or something.
- dehugger 3y agoAnyone who's worked at Starbucks can tell you that milk is 90%+ of the commodity being consumed. The back area of every store is just a massive cooler to store milk jugs. The beans themselves are almost a foot note in comparison.
- jonhohle 3y agoIt may just be me, but I don’t think in terms of “real-dollars” (which are in fact fictional). The non-inflation adjusted graph[0] showing around 30% increase in the last 4 years matches my grocery bills more closely. Previously on HN[0] I broke down a grocery bill and found we were paying >40% more from 2021-2023. 0 - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFXARC1M027SBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFXARC1M027SBEA 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38026990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38026990
- arcticbull 3y agoReal dollars aren't fictional lol, you can use the term constant-dollars if you prefer. The index is priced in 2017 dollars. Dollars each year are a new vintage, basically. A dollar last year is not the same as a dollar today, and comparing in real/constant dollars adjusts for that. Inflation from 2007-2024 was 49% so... that checks out. A 2% real-dollar annualized increase would actually be more than that. I'm not sure what your point is, those two series are equivalent. I guess you could normalize by something else like median wage but you're going to like that even less...
- jonhohle 3y agoAbsolutely fictional. They are a tool to do comparisons disregarding inflation - that has value - but the dollar in my wallet last year is a dollar today. It can’t buy as much, but that’s what everyone who isn’t an economist considers a dollar.
- arcticbull 3y agoThey're a tool specifically for incorporating inflation. Dollars don't live in wallets for years on end. They live in markets. They live productively in bank accounts and in investment vehicles. And generally you're buying food out of your paycheck, which is also going up over time. Look at median wage. [1] They myth of the idle dollar needs to die. The question isn't how much your one dollar sitting in your wallet can buy (that's separately answered in CPI) the question is how much of your take-home pay as a percentage do you have to spend on food. That's what this series offers, in both nominal, and real dollars. The point is to compare the change in burden over time for the median individual. Comparing nominal prices isn't interesting and plays to humans poor ability to deal with exponential series. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252881500Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252881500Q
- MichaelZuo 3y agoPeople can quite literally keep a bill in their wallet for multiple years. Do you not believe this?
- benhurmarcel 3y agoThe variation on the prices of ingredients has to be almost negligible for those drinks. Even in a huge cup you have at most $0.40 worth of milk and $0.30 of coffee beans (and that's generous, you could get specialty beans at that price).
- praisewhitey 3y agothe linked reddit specifies soy milk