Fortified · per gallon · US city average · all available data
A gallon of whole milk vs. official inflation, 1939–2025
Indexed: 1995 = 100, the year all three series converge · Three lines, three measures of inflation: what consumers actually paid (retail), the BLS CPI subindex for this category, and overall CPI-U All Items
Reading the chart. The retail dollar series begins in 1995 (BLS APU0000709112). The CPI subindex extends back to 1939 and shows that milk had a much longer history of relatively low inflation before the 1970s.