One price, measured in work · Sep 18, 2026

How long do you work for a dozen eggs?

A dozen eggs costs 2.6× what it did in 1980.

1:50 video. Every figure in it comes from the checked story data.

What the video says

A dozen eggs costs 2.6× what it did in 1980.
It also takes less of your working day to buy. Both of those are true.
In January 1980, a dozen was $0.88.
In August 2026, $2.27. That part everybody already knows.
Average pay went from $6.57 an hour to $32.53.
Production and nonsupervisory workers: about four fifths of private payrolls.
So ask it the other way round.
Price of a dozen, divided by the hourly wage, times sixty. Minutes of work for eggs.
Every month both series publish, starting January 1980.
559 months, measured in minutes.
Then against now.
8.0 minutes in 1980. 4.2 minutes in 2026.
The work fell by 48% — roughly half.
The cheapest eggs have been in this data.
3.1 minutes, in June 2019.
Which is not now.
And the other end of it.
12.0 minutes in March 2025, at $6.23 a dozen.
Worse than 1980. Only 3 months in this data crossed 10.0 minutes, and all of them recently.
What this does not tell you.
Nothing here says why a price moved: MISSING. And the wage is an average for one large group of workers, not your pay, so the minutes are ESTIMATED for any one person.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — egg prices and hourly earnings.
Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. This product uses the FRED® API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Not investment advice.

Marks open only as wide as each input’s evidence class allows. See Method.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Average Price: Eggs, Grade A, Large (APU0000708111) and Average Hourly Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees, Total Private (AHETPI), retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (public domain; the FRED notice travels with the piece)
Measure: minutes of work = 60 * price per dozen / average hourly earnings
Scope: Average hourly earnings are for production and nonsupervisory employees, not all workers, and are an average rather than any one person's pay.
Scope: The egg price is a U.S. city average for one grade and size (NSA); earnings are SA.
Scope: Nothing here says why a price moved.
Notice: This product uses the FRED® API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Voice: generated voice, reading the on-screen lines
Music: Ben Elson / Thyone / courtesy of Epidemic Sound

resolved story sha256: 22ff91a48979aa2dbf5b62142f4f5c95f47f9ba6c19aa5808fce1713d93ddf5d
rendered video sha256: cac18b9cbae6f413513686d34b7037ff62f18227319ce69569e6ee9c392225b1
web video sha256: 2ff939e8bffc8be8be256b37dc756f130776121b85f12569b1ca1216ebacf06c
story data sha256: 3d7573e2ed89ce11c66bb9a2421668522f9fa967ff495f638517ae65344210cc

Backtests and model estimates on historical data. Not investment advice.