As Thanksgiving day approaches on Nov. 24, Americans shopping for one of the most elaborate meals of the year will be feeling the impact of decades-high inflation.
Last year, the price of a Thanksgiving dinner had gone up by 14% from 2020, resulting in about $6 per person. This year, as Russia’s war in Ukraine adds to global food costs, the meal is set to be even more expensive. According to Wells Fargo, it may even be cheaper to just eat out.
A series of consecutive interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve has so far failed to slow down rising costs, as US inflation rose higher than expected in September. The US consumer price index (CPI) soared 8.2% over the last year, and 0.4% on the month, topping the 0.3% forecast by economists.
But a bright spot in that report was a cooling off of the price of goods. As we wait for the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ release of October CPI on Thursday (Nov. 10), we’re taking a look at how the price of five Thanksgiving staples has changed since 2020. Can you guess what these are? Don’t worry, we’ll give you a couple of hints (scroll to the bottom of the page for the answers).
Let’s get charting
Hints:
😝 Everyone claims to have the best recipe for this food, but there’s no way to know unless you try it… which shouldn’t be a problem, because there’s always room for it.
📉 This past Rosh Hashanah, the Australian Bureau of Statistics was a little too eager to share very specific census data in a chart that shares a shape with this food. (There probably was a better way to represent its data).
🗓️ 3/14
Hints:
📈 These items have witnessed the steepest increase in prices since the pandemic, due to disruptions in the availability of their base ingredients.
❄️ Whether they should be kept in the fridge or not is a matter of debate.
👎 Whatever you do, don’t bring an entire board filled with these items to your gathering.
Hints:
⏰ Time is of the essence for the making of this Thanksgiving staple.
🚢 Unlike its giant counterparts, this soupy substance’s serving vessel won’t get stuck in the Suez Canal.
📜 The name of this food was originally grané, a word deriving from the Latin granum “grain.”
Hints:
🗾 At the beginning of this year, a shortage of this food in North America caused rationing at fast-food restaurants in Japan.
🇺🇸 In 2020, more than 900,000 acres of this food was planted in the US, producing 46 billion pounds of it, worth around $4 billion.
🌐 This food’s top exporters are the Netherlands, France, Germany, China, Canada, and the US.
Hints:
🐘 After gun rights groups, the sector producing this food is the most Republican-leaning industry in the US.
📖 The origin story of this food’s name is complicated.
🦠 There’s a virus circulating that’s targeting this food and its family members
Check your guesses:
Item 1: Baking goods and pie, whose price has gone up by 25.56% since January 2021
Item 2: Butter and margarine have recorded a price increase of 35.19% since January 2021
Item 3: Sauces and gravy, which are now 17.82% pricier than in January 2021
Item 4: Potatoes, now 18.50% more expensive than in January 2021
Item 5: Poultry prices have increased by 20.29% since January 2021