“Putting together the Thanksgiving dinner cost from the Farm Bureau and median weekly earnings back to 1986, we see perhaps a shocking trend for many weary grocery shoppers: 2025 is the most affordable year for the median worker to buy Thanksgiving dinner. It is much more affordable than in the past three years, and it even slightly beats 2020—that very weird year in our lives and for economic data, which had held the previous affordability record. Gale Pooley performs a similar analysis at Human Progress using a different measure of income (blue-collar worker wages) and finds a similar trend with 2025’s Thanksgiving meal requiring the fewest hours of work to purchase it.

Where can you find this mythical $55 dinner? If you think that doesn’t sound quite right, it may be due to where you live. The Farm Bureau reports that in the Northeast and West regions, the meal was over $60, while the South region was the cheapest at $50. Regardless of where you live, have no fear, the free market is working hard to deliver you an affordable meal. Thanks to our competitive grocery store market, retailers across the country are putting together meal plans for you, allowing you to feed your family for somewhere in the range of $4–$5 per person—very similar to the Farm Bureau survey (which is about $5.50 per person).”

From Cato Institute.