Thanksgiving Price Fight: Why One Cheap Turkey Dinner Doesn’t Mean Inflation Is Over

Core Insights - The controversy surrounding Thanksgiving dinner pricing highlights the complexities of measuring inflation, emphasizing the use of broad-based indexes over individual prices [1][2][5] - Walmart's Thanksgiving meal deal, priced under $4 per person, is the lowest since 2021, but comparisons to previous years are complicated by changes in the number of items included [1][3][5] - President Trump leveraged Walmart's pricing to argue that his administration's policies reduced living costs, contrasting with criticisms of the current administration's economic management [1][3][5] Economic Implications - Experts advocate for broad-based consumer price indexes to provide a clearer picture of living costs, rather than focusing on individual item prices [2][7] - The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is up 3% over the past year, with grocery prices specifically rising by 2.7%, which is above the Federal Reserve's target of 2% inflation [8] Political Context - Trump's assertion that Thanksgiving dinner costs 25% less than the previous year has been challenged by fact-checkers, noting that the meal deal's composition has changed significantly [3][5] - The White House supported its economic narrative with data from DoorDash, indicating a 14% decrease in a breakfast basics index since March, although the overall index was only down 1.7% over the past year [6][8]