Don’t Believe What You Read About Turkey Inflation

Inflation on Thanksgiving isn’t just for parade balloons anymore.

According to the Farm Bureau’s annual survey, the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner is up 20 percent from 2021. As it has every year for four decades, the agriculture industry group’s report has proven irresistible to local television stations and NPR reporters seeking holiday content. It’s also been catnip for Republicans, who have pounced on the news to attack the Biden administration.

The main course on Thursday will be turkey, and turkey is the headline item in the Farm Bureau survey, accounting for almost half the total cost of the meal. A 16-pound bird, surveyors report, is going for $28.96 this year, up 21 percent from last year. That’s $1.81 per pound!

There’s just one problem: Retail whole frozen turkey prices were at just $1 a pound last week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Retail Report of 29,200 supermarkets. So, that’s $16 for a 16-pound bird—not $29. It’s a big enough difference to erase the entire $10.74 price jump between the cost of this year’s Thanksgiving and last’s that constitutes the Farm Bureau’s main finding. According to the USDA, the price per pound is 7 cents higher than last year—almost perfectly in line with the broader CPI inflation figure of 7.7 percent—and a good deal below the broader year-over-year grocery inflation mark of 12 percent.