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Tariffs will affect traditional food staples at a typical Thanksgiving meal this holiday season.
According to an analysis by Michigan State University, food economist David Ortega discusses how every staple for a Thanksgiving meal will be more expensive this year.
“After a period of cooling inflation, food price increases have begun to accelerate again in recent months,” said Ortega in the analysis. “Today, grocery or ‘food-at-home’ prices are 2.7% higher than a year ago and remain more than 25% higher than five years again”.
“This recent uptick in food inflation reflects a mix of factors, including labor and supply constraints in certain industries and higher prices for imports due to tariffs,” he added.
The price of meat such as turkey and beef has gone up by 39.9% and 18.4% respectively. The price of drinks may vary as wine is shown to have gone down by 1.2%. However, the analysis notes that tariffs may raise the price of imported wines as well as other drinks such as coffee.
In an effort to keep the prices of holiday meals down, Trump rolled back several food-related tariffs on November 14th. These rollbacks include, bananas, beef, coffee, tomatoes, and more.
To combat the price hikes of Thanksgiving meals, Major retailers such as Walmart and Aldi are offering affordable deals for holiday meals.
US President Donald Trump has discussed on social media how he helped bring down the prices of a Thanksgiving meal.
“2025 Thanksgiving Dinner under Trump is 25% lower than Thanksgiving Dinner under Biden, according to Walmart,” posted Trump on Truth Social.
While Walmart’s CEO John Furmer did state on social media that this year’s Thanksgiving Meal Bundle is 25% less than the previous year’s, the effects of price increases may not appear on the sticker price. The food items in this year’s Thanksgiving bundle (15 items) are significantly fewer than the previous year, which included 29 items. Economists call this “shrinkflation,” when in order to avoid passing increased costs onto consumers, producers reduce the quantity of chips in the bag, toppings on the pizza, or items in the Thanksgiving Day Bundle as the case may be.
SNAP issues
Even following the 43 days of government shutdown, the longest in the country’s history, millions of Americans who rely on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) whose benefits were restored following the restart have concerns over affordability this year.
According to a recent report from Coupon Follow, 72% of Americans who are receiving SNAP Benefits have concerns about not being able to afford food for themselves or their families during the holiday season. The report states that on average, SNAP Recipients typically spend around $93 for food and groceries for Thanksgiving.
63% of Americans expect their Holiday grocery budget to be smaller this year, and 45% say that the SNAP benefit shutdown has greatly affected their ability to plan for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Despite the shutdown ending and SNAP benefits being reinstated in some states, some recipients may lose benefits due to new requirements.
WaL has examined the tariff strategy extensively since April when it was announced. There’s a considerable consensus among economists that tariffs would raise prices for Americans this year on anything they were applied to. The Trump administration has they wont, insisting that producers will allow the tariff rates to eat into their profits rather than passing them onto the consumer, or that foreign governments somehow would pay the import tax.
On other occasions Trump or his economic team have argued that the tariffs will lead to increased domestic production, which would then result in lower prices. That remains to be seen, and if it were the case, that explanation would necessarily mean that prices would increase, until, as the President’s allies have said, domestic production increases as a result.
As to why domestic production would expand, economics suggests that domestic production would increase as a result of offshore production becoming too expensive because of the additional import taxes. In any of these cases, economics as a science would state, and indeed most economists do, that prices would increase on consumers in the short to medium term following the application of tariffs. WaL
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