Boneless USDA Choice round steak, one of the cheaper steaks in the meat case, averaged $9.84 a pound in September, according to the Labor Department. The exact figure is $9.838, up from $9.360 a year earlier. Premium sirloin, at $14.106, was slightly cheaper than a year ago.
That split is the story of beef prices this fall. The budget cuts, round steak and ground beef, rose fastest from a year ago, while the priciest steak edged down. Shoppers who trade down to save money are running into the biggest increases.
Round steak up 5.1% in a year
The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists the U.S. city average for round steak in its monthly table of average retail food prices. The September figure of $9.838 compares with $9.692 in August and $9.360 in September 2025. That is a gain of 14.6 cents in a month and 47.8 cents, or 5.1%, in a year.
For a family that buys two pounds of round steak, the bill is $19.68, against $18.72 a year ago. Boneless sirloin runs $14.106 a pound, which is $4.27 more than round. Sirloin was $14.135 a year earlier and $14.357 in August, so it was the one steak that fell.
The table gives a monthly average for the whole country, not the price at any one store. The BLS says each figure applies to the month as a whole, not to a specific date.
Ground beef is the bigger jump
Ground beef made from 100% beef averaged $6.792 a pound in September, up from $6.323 a year earlier. That is 46.9 cents, or 7.4%, more. It was down from $6.923 in August, a drop of 13.1 cents.
So why does beef keep costing more at the store? For the cuts most households actually buy, the price is up from last year. A shopper who switches from steak to ground beef can find the savings are smaller than expected, and a shopper who stays with sirloin has seen a small drop, but at $14 a pound.
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Chuck, roasts and the chicken comparison
Ground chuck averaged $6.483 a pound, up 2.5% from $6.326. The broader category of all uncooked ground beef averaged $7.062, up from $6.643, a rise of 6.3%. All uncooked beef steaks averaged $12.690 a pound, up 3.5% from $12.262.
Roasts were the exception. Boneless USDA Choice chuck roast averaged $9.186 a pound, a bit below the $9.232 of last September. All uncooked beef roasts averaged $9.097 against $9.040.
Chicken is the usual fallback when beef costs too much. Boneless chicken breast averaged $4.203 a pound, so ground beef at $6.792 costs $2.59 more. A year earlier the gap was $2.15, with chicken at $4.172 and ground beef at $6.323.
What USDA’s price economists see
The Agriculture Department’s Food Price Outlook, released September 25, puts beef and veal prices up 5.9% in August from a year earlier. Beef and veal slipped 0.6% from July to August. The outlook forecasts a 9.4% rise for 2026 as a whole, with a range from 7.4% to 11.6%.
Beef is running well ahead of the grocery cart as a whole. The same outlook has all food at home up 2.2% in August from a year earlier and 2.4% for 2026. The 9.4% beef forecast is nearly four times the forecast for food at home.
The Labor Department’s September consumer price index shows the same cooling at the grocery counter in the short run. Beef fell 1.0% in September, according to the release. The release did not give a 12-month beef figure, and food at home as a whole rose 1.8% over 12 months.
Beef slipped in both the August and September readings but remains well above last year, and the Agriculture Department expects a high full-year number.
The smallest cattle herd since 1951
The supply side explains much of it. USDA’s January cattle inventory counted about 86.2 million cattle and calves, nearly unchanged from 2025 and the smallest herd since 1951, Farm Progress reported in February. Beef replacement heifers were up 1%.
“We’ve quit ‘bleeding’ cows, but we’re not growing,” said Kyle Bumsted, a commodity broker and branch office manager at Allendale Inc. Don Close, senior animal protein analyst at Terrain Ag, said high calf prices could encourage ranchers to hold back females, but keeping a heifer two years before any return is hard to give up.
The report also noted that exempting Brazilian beef from tariffs should add shipments, but that beef goes mainly into ground beef and is a small share of U.S. supply. Live cattle imports from Mexico remain halted to prevent the spread of New World screwworm. More than a third of American cattle were in drought-affected areas.
When the cheap cut is not cheap
A pound of round steak is $9.838 and a pound of ground beef is $6.792, and both cost more than they did a year ago. The Agriculture Department’s forecast of a 9.4% rise for 2026 as a whole says the pressure has not eased. The two-year wait Close described for a heifer kept for breeding shows why supply recovers slowly.
The BLS publishes the next table with the October consumer price index, which will show whether round steak holds near $9.84 or keeps climbing.
Is $6.79-a-pound ground beef stretching the meat budget?
Ground beef at $6.792 a pound and round steak at $9.838 are both above last year’s prices, and the full-year beef forecast is higher still. For households on a fixed income, a few dollars more at the meat counter every week is money taken from the bills that cannot wait.
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This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
