Your Burger Is a Luxury Item Now

Beef prices are soaring, and your grocery bill just became the latest hostage of droughts and politics.

You walk into the grocery store, grab a pack of ground beef for tonight’s burgers, and stop dead in your tracks. $6.12 a pound for hamburger meat. Not grass‑fed, not Wagyu—just plain old American beef.

Steaks aren’t faring any better. Ribeyes that were $9.99 last year are now brushing $11.49 a pound. That cookout you planned for the weekend? Congratulati…