Typical Cost of a Pound of Ground Beef
On this page
About $6.92 per pound in August 2026, the latest month published. This is the U.S. city average.
Latest price
$6.92
per pound, August 2026
From the month before
+$0.04
+0.6%$6.89 in Jul 2026
From a year earlier
+$0.61
+9.6%$6.32 in Aug 2025
How the price has moved
Monthly averages from January 2024 to August 2026. The lowest was $5.03 in January 2024 and the highest $6.92 in August 2026.
Where August 2026 sits among those months
Each tick is one month. The highlighted band holds the middle half of them, and the dark line is the median.
Month by month
| Month | Average price | From the month before |
|---|---|---|
| August 2026 | $6.92 | +0.6% |
| July 2026 | $6.89 | +0.9% |
| June 2026 | $6.83 | +1.2% |
| May 2026 | $6.75 | −2.2% |
| April 2026 | $6.90 | +3.0% |
| March 2026 | $6.70 | −0.6% |
| February 2026 | $6.74 | −0.2% |
| January 2026 | $6.75 | +1.0% |
| December 2025 | $6.69 | +2.2% |
| November 2025 | $6.54 | Month before not published |
| September 2025 | $6.32 | +0.1% |
| August 2025 | $6.32 | +1.0% |
| July 2025 | $6.25 | +2.2% |
| June 2025 | $6.12 | +2.3% |
| May 2025 | $5.98 | +3.1% |
| April 2025 | $5.80 | +0.2% |
| March 2025 | $5.79 | +2.9% |
| February 2025 | $5.63 | +1.4% |
| January 2025 | $5.55 | −1.1% |
| December 2024 | $5.61 | −0.4% |
| November 2024 | $5.63 | +0.7% |
| October 2024 | $5.59 | −1.4% |
| September 2024 | $5.67 | +1.7% |
| August 2024 | $5.58 | +1.5% |
| July 2024 | $5.50 | +0.5% |
| June 2024 | $5.47 | +6.3% |
| May 2024 | $5.15 | −1.7% |
| April 2024 | $5.24 | +2.0% |
| March 2024 | $5.13 | 0.0% |
| February 2024 | $5.13 | +2.0% |
| January 2024 | $5.03 | Month before not published |
What this figure is
This is the average price the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes for the item it describes as “Ground beef, 100% beef, per lb. (453.6 gm)”. It is an average across U.S. cities and is not adjusted for the season, so it can rise and fall with the time of year. Prices at your own store can be higher or lower.
When a month is missing from the table, BLS did not publish a figure for it. Nothing is filled in or estimated.
Common questions
How much does a pound of ground beef cost?
- A pound of ground beef costs about $6.92 on average in U.S. cities as of August 2026, the latest month published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Is the price of ground beef going up or down?
- Up over the past year. The average was $6.32 in August 2025 and $6.92 in August 2026, a change of +9.6%.
What is a normal price for a pound of ground beef?
- Over the past 31 months the price has usually been between $5.56 and $6.69 per pound, with a median of $5.80.
What were the highest and lowest prices of ground beef recently?
- In the past 31 months the highest monthly average was $6.92 in August 2026 and the lowest was $5.03 in January 2024.
Source
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Average Price Data
Covers January 2024 to August 2026. Retrieved on October 6, 2026.
See this series at BLSSource: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Average Price Data, retrieved through the BLS Public Data API. BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.