Americans' Thanksgiving dinners are getting more affordable

Inflation was a factor in this month's presidential election, but Americans gathering for the Thanksgiving holiday might note that their turkey dinner has become easier to afford.

We've estimated how hard Americans are having to work to pay for their meals – and visualized how food prices have returned to the long-term affordability trend that was sharply disrupted by the post-pandemic price surge.

US government statistics estimate that in 2019, the average American spent USD 4,422 on food consumed at home. Assuming the quantity of food purchased remains constant, we used the appropriate segments of the consumer price index as a deflator to chart month-to-month spending in USD terms; we then divided by average hourly wages.

The result: in October, a month's worth of food cost the average American 15.4 hours of labor. At the worst of the inflationary surge of 2022, Americans were working an average of 16.3 hours to afford those calories. (As our chart demonstrates, food prices were rising more quickly than the broad CPI.)

CEIC users can extend the time frame of our primary chart to visualize this measure of affordability going back to the late 1960s. During the worst of the 1970s inflation, it could take 20 hours of work or more to afford a month's worth of food. The early 80s saw relief, though that was reversed in the second half of the decade. But since 1990, earnings outpaced have food costs – leading to gradual and more-or-less steady improvements to affordability.

Our final chart gives a sense of how wage growth has caught up to spending. Personal income received a boost in October; the aggregate figure grew at a 0.6% month-on-month pace – a seven-month high. Expenditure growth, meanwhile, slowed to 0.3%. (To be sure, expect that to pick up in November and December with the usual spending spree before the holidays.)

If you are a CEIC user, access the story here.