Your Turkey Is Cheaper This Thanksgiving. That’s About It.
Hold the inflation.
Photographer: John Carl D'Annibale/Albany Times Union/Getty Images
Early this month, you may remember, President Donald Trump caught a lot of flak for bragging on Truth Social that “2025 Thanksgiving dinner under Trump is 25% lower than 2024 Thanksgiving dinner under Biden, according to Walmart. My cost [sic] are lower than the Democrats on everything.” The problem with these claims was that the cheaper 2025 Walmart Thanksgiving meal consisted of just 15 items compared with 29 last year, while consumer prices overall are higher than when Trump took office in January.
Still, several estimates of Thanksgiving meal costs that didn’t change up the ingredients found that prices weren’t up much or have fallen outright this year. Consulting firm Deloitte estimated that the cost of a home-cooked meal of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie was up 0.6% over 2024, while the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute calculated that the cost of a similar spread was down 2% or 3%, “depending on the shopper’s strategy,” and the American Farm Bureau Federation reported that it was down 5%. So yes, Thanksgiving dinner may really be a relative bargain this year. That just doesn’t mean everything is.