OPINION:
The White House wants you to believe that Thanksgiving dinner will be cheaper this year. According to its press release, it’s “proof that under President Trump’s leadership, America is winning the war on high prices.” Far from it, inflation is heating up. Mr. Trump’s protectionist tariffs certainly aren’t helping. Still, that doesn’t stop White House PR from attempting some clever sleight of hand.
With a meticulously tailored shopping list meant for a press release rather than your dinner table, the White House claims that this year’s Walmart-catered holiday meal will be 25% less expensive. In reality, the only way the cost of Thanksgiving dinner dropped that much is if your family shrank, your appetite shriveled or you decided beverages are optional. Purchasing the same quantity and assortment of food and beverages as last year, the cost actually rises slightly, to $7.24 per person from $7.16. That’s a far cry from the heavily promoted $4 headline number.
Here’s how Walmart engineered the Thanksgiving discount. This year’s 13-pound bird to feed 10 people is indeed $1.76 less, but turkey accounts for only 18% of the total cost of a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Other items rose sharply, including a whopping 30% jump in the cost of cranberry sauce. These other price hikes wipe out the turkey savings.
So to create the illusion of falling costs, the PR magicians change the composition of the Thanksgiving shopping cart. Simply swap some items, reduce quantity sizes, leave out beverages, and delete some of last year’s savory treats altogether: the very shrinkflation Americans grew all too accustomed to during the years of Bidenflation.
Stuffing? Last year, it was made with fresh onions, fresh celery, chicken broth and seasonings. This year, it is boxed Stove Top. Instead of serving both rolls and corn muffins, this year’s meal includes rolls only. Enjoy those crispy fried onions atop your green bean casserole? Expect barely half that crispiness this year. To mask these cuts, the new basket adds in a few boxes of mac and cheese and some carrots. Dessert takes a hit as well. Last year’s “model meal” included two pies: pecan and pumpkin. This year, there will be no pecan pie. Don’t expect the frozen whipped topping either. This year’s spread eliminates the sweet potato casserole and gooey marshmallow topping as well.
The curated Thanksgiving basket proposes a meal with empty glasses. After all, coffee is up 21% since last Thanksgiving, followed by a 16% jump in Coca-Cola and 6% increase in eggnog. Sticking with only water is one way to avoid the higher beverage costs.
The Thanksgiving spin distracts from a broader and more painful reality: Grocery inflation is accelerating again. Overall food prices are at all-time highs. Since January, grocery costs have risen at a 2.9% annual rate, up from the 2.3% increase in 2024. By comparison, food prices rose less than 2.5% in total during the first two years of the first Trump administration. For a family of four, that’s roughly $500 additional annual expenses on top of the past four years of elevated inflation. Unless you’re planning to live on turkey year-round, your weekly grocery bill tells the truer story.
Claiming Thanksgiving is suddenly “25% cheaper” is akin to a burger joint boasting that its titular entree is now $11.25 instead of $15, while omitting that the fries disappeared, the patty shrank by 2 ounces and the ketchup is extra.
Americans aren’t fooled. You feel the grocery inflation the White House would prefer to photoshop away. This Thanksgiving, families don’t deserve empty rhetoric and spin. They deserve economic policies that make their meals, and their lives, genuinely more affordable. Ending the tariffs that are spiking the costs of staples such as beef, fruit, vegetables and coffee would be a good start.
• Joel Griffith is the senior fellow for economic prosperity at Advancing American Freedom.
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