Social media was abuzz this week after NBC published an article that claimed “Thanksgiving dinner is historically affordable this year” and suggested the average cost of a Thanksgiving meal for 10 people would cost just $58.08.
The $58 dollar estimate comes from a survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation, which has conducted the same survey since 1984. That survey, however, has a limited number of items on it, which together can’t be considered a full Thanksgiving meal, let alone a meal for 10 people.
The survey asks volunteer shoppers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico to search their local grocery stores for the prices for the following items: “Turkey, cubed stuffing, sweet potatoes, dinner rolls, frozen peas, fresh cranberries, celery, carrots, pumpkin pie mix and crusts, whipping cream, and whole milk.”
If you’ve ever eaten a Thanksgiving dinner, you’ll notice a few things missing from this list — including potatoes, butter, gravy, and any ingredients needed to turn these basic items into actual dishes.
When was the last time you sat down for Thanksgiving and filled your plate with cranberries (not in sauce form), peas, celery, carrots, and cooked but plain sweet potatoes? Of course, such a feast wouldn’t be complete without a pie crust and some dry pumpkin pie mix, which you could presumably mix up with that whipping cream. Doesn’t that sound delicious?
In 2018, this survey added ham, Russet potatoes, and frozen green beans. Adding in these items already raises the price to $77.34, so the focus on $58 becomes an obvious attempt to make people think prices are low under the Biden administration. It reminds one of the administration’s embarrassing boast in 2021 that the cost of a July 4th cookout was 16 cents cheaper than in 2020. That, too, was based on a strange list of items used in a Farm Bureau survey.
The claim immediately brought dissent on X, with people wondering how it was possible to feed 10 people for just $58. It turns out, as one might expect, that everything in the article is misleading, starting with the headline.
To get the claim that prices are “historically affordable,” NBC had to hide most of what the survey found and use the “adjusted for inflation” metric.
“When adjusted for inflation – or if your dollar had the same overall purchasing power as a consumer in 1984, right before the beginning of this survey – this would be the least expensive Thanksgiving meal in the 39-year history of the AFBF Thanksgiving survey, other than the outlier of 2020,” the survey authors wrote.
But earlier in the survey, the authors admit that the cost this year “is still 19% higher than five years ago.”
NBC did include this information in the sixth paragraph, but waves off this information because of federal data showing median household wages have grown 25% in the past five years, even if many workers haven’t seen that increase or don’t feel better off now than they were.
The outlet tried to find Thanksgiving meal deals under $58, but, like the survey, came up short when it came to the true cost of the holiday.
