“Despite increased demand (particularly from voracious children), berries are becoming more affordable in the United States. The economist Jeremy Horpedahl finds that between 2013 and 2023, median wages in the United States grew much faster than berry prices, reducing the working hours required to afford the fruits,” reports The Doomslayer.
Apple and banana consumption is down somewhat from 2000, but strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry consumption is up by a lot. Banana consumption fell a lot from 2000 to 2009, then went back up to its 2000 level by 2017, then fell a bit through 2021. Bananas are relatively cheap, and last somewhat longer than berries. Apples are more expensive than bananas but cheaper than berries, and last much longer than berries. Bananas have gotten even cheaper over time compared to people’s incomes compared to berries, and would look dirt cheap to a person in most of the 20th century.
“American’s berry-eating has shifted from seasonal treat to year-round habit in a generation. The supply of strawberries per person has more than tripled since 1980, from under two pounds a year to nearly seven, on average,” reports The Washington Post:
Blueberries have gone from a supply of less than three ounces per person a year in 1980 to more than two pounds per year today. Other fruits have not followed: per capita supply of apples, bananas and grapefruit has fallen since 2000.
That growth has come mostly thanks to imports from abroad. Roughly half of the berries Americans ate in 2021 were imports, up from less than a third in 2006, according to Post estimates based on Agriculture Department data. Mexico supplies 98 percent of fresh strawberry imports, with Peru and Chile covering most of the rest of the year-round berry trade.
Total U.S. fresh berry imports were $4.8 billion in 2025, up from $134 million in 2000.
In nominal terms, “The fruit hasn’t got cheaper. In 1980, a pound of strawberries cost about three times the price of a pound of bananas. Today, they cost roughly six times as much.” But people’s incomes rose faster than the price of strawberries during most of that period, so berries have gotten more affordable, although not as much more affordable as bananas.
In 1980, the average cost of bananas in the United States ranged between $0.32 and $0.35 per pound. By comparison, adjusting for inflation, that 1980 price roughly equals $1.18 to $1.29 in 2026 dollars, meaning bananas are actually much cheaper today relative to the overall cost of living. In the U.S., bananas cost an average of $0.65 per pound in 2026.
As economist Jerome Horpedahl notes, “Relative to median wages, berries of all kinds are now more affordable than a decade ago. Parents may still feel squeezed by all the berries their kids are eating, but in terms of affordability and share of the family budget, there is probably no need for a Berry Panic.” Moreover, “the broader category of Fresh Fruits is a very small share of consumer spending. It has pretty consistently consumed between 0.30% and 0.45% of income for families with children over the past 4 decades. That’s less than $1 out of every $200 of income.”
Child death rates have also fallen. Professor Horpedahl notes that “The death rate for children ages 5-14 as pedestrians and bike riders has fallen about 95% since the 1970s
Worldwide, “4.9 million children under the age of 5 died in 2024, down from 13 million in 1990.
“The number of children living in extreme poverty fell to a record low of 412 million in 2024, down from 507 million a decade earlier,” reports The Doomslayer. The percentage of children living in poverty has never been lower in human history.
Child labor has fallen sharply.
