Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash

President Donald Trump wants Americans to believe “affordability” can be measured in terms of turkey and stuffing. On his social media platform he recently wrote: “2025 Thanksgiving dinner under Trump is 25% lower than 2024 Thanksgiving dinner under Biden, according to Walmart. My cost (sic) are lower than the Democrats on everything, especially oil and gas! So the Democrats’ ‘affordability’ issue is DEAD! STOP LYING!!!”

At a White House event the next day, Trump doubled down: “They came out and they said Trump’s Thanksgiving dinner — same things — is 25% less than Biden’s. … We are the ones that have done a great job on affordability, not the Democrats,” he said, calling Democrats’ focus on living costs a “con job.”

Here’s the problem: Trump’s claim isn’t based on federal data, independent analysis or even a consistent measure of prices. It’s based on a Walmart holiday promotion that changes every year. And because the lists aren’t remotely comparable, the claim doesn’t tell us much about affordability. So, in the name of “science” (and more than a little bit of curiosity), I decided to conduct a little experiment at the Walmart Supercenter off West New Circle Road in Lexington to see what was going on in the real world.

Talking turkey about prices

To be fair to the president, Walmart did announce that its 2025 Thanksgiving basket is “25% cheaper” than last year’s. As many outlets have pointed out, however, the two lists are nowhere near the same. This year’s basket includes 15 products, six fewer than the 21 in 2024. Count each item individually, and it’s 22 this year versus 29 last year. The pecan pie? Gone. Sweet potatoes? Gone. Two cans of cream of mushroom soup were cut to one. Fresh onions, celery and corn muffin mix? Also gone. In their place, there were sometimes substitutes, and three boxes of macaroni appear on the 2025 list but not the 2024 list.

Both the 2024 and 2025 Walmart Thanksgiving lists have been scrutinized and critiqued by journalists, who noted that their contents shift from year to year, making direct comparisons unreliable. Yet no one I could find has conducted an apples-to-apples comparison using the same 2024 basket of goods and pricing those identical items for 2025 — a method more aligned with how economists measure inflation. In fact, that’s exactly how the Consumer Price Index (CPI) works: It tracks the cost of the same fixed basket of goods over time to determine how prices have truly changed.

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

So that’s exactly what I did. Armed with last year’s Walmart Thanksgiving list, I went to the New Circle Road Walmart to find every item: same size turkey, same bag of potatoes, same cans of green beans and same cream of mushroom soup. Think of me as part bargain hunter, part social scientist. I prowled the aisles with the tenacity of someone who’s seen one too many “rollback” signs, even prompting a couple of Walmart employees to ask what I was up to.

What I found told a very different story than the one being shared by the president. Pricing last year’s exact basket in 2025 came to $59.37 or roughly $7.42 per person, about 6% higher than the cost of the same meal in 2024. (All food items were priced on Nov. 11.)

The turkey alone rose from 88 cents per pound to 97 cents per pound (around a 10% increase), and staples like onions, potatoes and gravy mix may have ticked up as well. Some canned goods may have held steady, but nothing meaningfully dropped. The exact per-unit prices in 2024 are unknown, though Walmart stated the meal “… serves eight people for less than $7 per person.” For anyone shopping with a list and a calculator rather than a campaign slogan, the verdict is clear: Thanksgiving isn’t getting cheaper, no matter how many exclamation points you put after a sentence.

Facts over fanfare

Recreating last year’s full Walmart Thanksgiving basket in 2025 showed the truth: The same meal is about 6% more expensive — not 25% cheaper as claimed. Prices are still rising, even if the pace is a bit slower than the peak of inflation during the Biden administration.

I’ll admit this wasn’t a formal experiment conducted with all the rigor of a trained economist. I didn’t control for every variable or run multiple trials at multiple Walmart locations. But even a simple apples-to-apples comparison is far better than making bold statements without any data. Late night “truths” might grab headlines, but they are a poor gauge of affordability.

A sale on turkey or taters doesn’t capture the costs Kentucky families and families across the nation face every day like rent, gas, health care, child care and other essentials. Using a limited, ever-changing basket of groceries to claim that “Thanksgiving is cheaper” misrepresents what affordability looks like for real households.

If we care about honest debates on the economy and what affordability looks like, we need reliable, consistent data, not marketing gimmicks or “truths” based on a retail promotion. Tools like the Consumer Price Index, produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, exist for a reason: They track real changes in prices over time so policymakers, the Federal Reserve, and citizens alike can make informed decisions about the economy.

Plus, Kentucky families, who know the difference between a real deal and a “bless your heart” kind of deal, deserve an honest assessment of what’s getting more affordable and what’s not. And Kentucky families, who can stretch a dollar further than a Frankfort politician can stretch a mile of the Mountain Parkway, understand that true affordability isn’t determined by a catchy retail promotion; it’s measured with facts, not fanfare. When it comes to an honest assessment of affordability, leave the stuffing in the turkey, not in your economic analysis.