Consumer's Surplus Diagram

Consumer's surplus can be easily shown in a demand diagram. Let's take a graphic look at the consumers' surplus in the burger example.

Figure 3. Individual Demand and Consumer's Surplus

In the figure, the demand for burgers is the stairstep "curve," and the $2 price is the gray line. The lightly shaded area between the demand curve and the price line is the consumer's surplus. In general, we may visualize the "consumers' surplus" for any demand curve as the area between the demand curve and the price line, to the left of the quantity consumed.