Sliced deli roast beef at my local grocery store in the midwest is around $15 a pound. In the past it’s usually like the other meats, chicken, turkey, ham at around $7 a pound. It’s not the animal, steaks or beef ribs are the usual price.
Is it like this where you live?
CT: Most deli meats here are Boar’s Head brand. Chicken, turkey, and ham are usually aroun $10/lb; roast beef and corned beef are usually $11-12/lb. (That’s at the commissary; no idea what they are at civilian stores.)
In Canada you’d probably pay about $2.50 to $4.00 (Canadian) for 100 grams at the deli, which is about $12-18 a pound, minus 30% for currency conversion to USD. A little cheaper.
Packaged sliced roast beef might be $5 Canadian for 150-200 grams. Costco sells a good quality product at about C$15 for ?600 grams. The cheapest by far is buying “ends” of roast beef packaged in 1 kg (2.2 lb) bags at Few Frills - which costs about $5 and (although misshapen) is of surprisingly good quality. If I bought it often, I’d buy that or Costco.
Since this is basically an informal poll, let’s move it to IMHO (from GQ).
At the local Giant Food, Boar’s Head Rare Roast Beef is $13/lb. This is in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Their Oven Gold turkey is $12.
Roast beef here is a bit under $10 per pound. Other deli meats are around $7 to $8. Prices are up a bit since last year but not as dramatic as the OP.
Southern Pennsylvania, by the way.
I haven’t checked out the price lately but here roast beef has always been about twice as expensive as every other deli meat I’ve ever bought.
The last few times I’ve checked, roast beef is about $11.99 or 12.99 a pound, with other beef options such as pastrami or corned beef generally being about a buck a point less and most other meats being $2-4 less per pound. It’s absolutely noticeable. Which is why I just don’t buy it anymore. I love a good roast beef sandwich, but when I can buy a steak for less, well, I’ll have PB&J on a sandwich and steak for dinner. 
So here in Colorado, I’d say about 50% more overall, oh, and it never goes on significant sales like other deli meats do.
I suspect the higher cost, around $15-$17/lb in Hawaii is because unlike fully cooked beef like pastrami or corned beef, it spoils much quicker because of the high moisture content. Especially when sliced thin. More surface area to go bad.
Don’t know the exact price, but I do not buy roast beef because it is too expensive to justify around here, and my available food budget is limited… Generally 50-100% more expensive than any other deli meats (NE Wyoming).
About the same around here in New England for Boar’s Head. The butcher shop and the grocery store both have their own in-house roast beef at around $10/lb. The price of beef was quite high until the past few weeks, now down a little to just plain high.
$11 or so sounds about right. It’s not something I’ll buy often, it’s so expensive that I’d get mad if it gets buried in my fridge and has gone bad.
Just checked my local Kroger, and regular price is $11.29 - but wait - it’s on sale this week for $9.99!
Unfortunately, the cost of gas just might outweigh your savings if you drove from the midwest to south Texas just to get it
“I remember when you couldn’t even CARRY five dollars worth of corned beef!”
I remembered I had some deli roast beef from Kroger in the fridge so I just checked-- $9.99. Guess I caught the sale!
I’m always a little surprised that roast beef is so pricey, and yet braunschweiger is so cheap. I vastly prefer braunschweiger.
Deli roast beef is a little pricy. But bigger roasts go on sale all the time, make a healthy and easy supper (with lots of roast veg), makes great sandwiches (slice thin) and great leftovers too. It isn’t quite the same as deli unless you own a meat slicer, but you can come close. And you know what’s in it (more or less).
Is deli roast beef worth the money? I’m always bothered by the green sheen. Iridescent meat isn’t appetizing.
I spent $300 last year getting a “good” meat slicer.
Cash and Carry had entire sirloins for 2.99 a pound. A dinner of steaks, a roast beef dinner, stew meat and sliced roast beef. It takes a little bit of Youtube to learn to breakdown a sirloin. I started with pork loins because they’re cheap and already the right shape.
Lucky is the man whose favorites are the unpopular. If you like pork liver better than beef than you are loving life.