How this is worked out
How many hours of work does it take to afford groceries?
The same 11 foods, counted in hours of work.
Second year. Median pay is published to 2025. 2026 means January to August 2026.
Hours of work to buy the basket. Factory pay goes back to 1914 (none was published for 1915 to 1918). Median full-time pay is published for 1979 to 2025. The basket is one unit of each of 11 foods, not what a household buys.
In hours of work. Factory pay is for production and nonsupervisory workers. The median worker is a full-time wage and salary worker working 40 hours a week. After-tax pay is an estimate for one single worker: federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, no state tax and no credits. Pay for 2026 is January to August 2026.
Minutes of after-tax factory work to buy each food. Prices are national averages. Milk before 1998 is the half-gallon price; later years are the gallon price halved and adjusted. Butter 2013 to 2017 and coffee 2008 are estimates, and two Census values are doubtful (1952 potatoes, 1956 bacon).
The year you were born. Prices are for the year you were born.
How typical is factory pay?. Median family income covers a whole family, often with two earners; median weekly earnings cover one full-time worker. Factory pay is shown for the whole span because it is the only pay series from 1914.
Your answer in words. The 11 foods took 2.6 hours of after-tax factory work in 1980 and 1.8 hours in 2025, which is 29% less work.
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US inflation 3.4% (August 2026, US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
How every calculator on the site is built, and what changed and when, is on How it works.