Thanksgiving Costs Draw Scrutiny

When President Trump appeared this afternoon in the newly paved-over Rose Garden to pardon a pair of turkeys named Gobble and Waddle, he boasted that his policies had helped significantly bring down the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner. It’s a claim he has made several times in recent days.

The reality is more complicated. Overall, food costs are up 2.7 percent over the past year. Some economists say that Thanksgiving food is slightly cheaper than last year; others suggest it is slightly more expensive. Trump has celebrated Walmart for reducing the price of its Thanksgiving meal, but this year’s meal includes different items and fewer of them. My colleague Kevin Draper calls it the Thanksgiving food cost wars, where retailers compete for shoppers and politicians compete for narrative.

Complicating things further: Most grocers make their orders for Thanksgiving turkeys nine to 12 months in advance. Wholesale prices for turkey are up 75 percent from last year, largely because of diminished supply from avian flu, which could drive up prices for next year’s dinner.

The battle comes as Americans have become increasingly concerned about affordability. Consumer sentiment, according to a popular survey from the University of Michigan, is the lowest it has been in 40 years. Lower than in the dark, early days of Covid, lower than during the financial crisis of 2008 and lower than in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash.



https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/briefing/thanksgiving-costs-draw-scrutiny.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share