AMERICANS HAVE BEEN feeling the pinch of more than $100 oil. Food prices have also been soaring. That will become really up close and personal when the 88 percent of Americans who eat turkey on Thanksgiving descend on their supermarkets and butcher shops to pick up their holiday gobblers.
We will carve up about 50 million of the birds on Thanksgiving Day, some to consume in the old-fashioned way, with family gathered around the tables, others to gnaw on drumsticks in front of their television sets watching football. According to the National Turkey Federation, the average turkey weighs about 15 pounds, so the almost 50 million turkeys weigh in at a combined 750 million pounds. Experts are guessing that the price this year will be some 50-cents-per-pound higher than last year, as growers try to recoup rising feed and fuel costs. That comes to a whopping $375,000,000 more than last year to come out of household food budgets.
And more is in store for consumers who will roast another 20+ million turkeys at Christmas–resulting in an increased spend of another $150 million. All in all, over half-billion dollars more just to give the family the bird this holiday season.
Irwin M. Stelzer is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, and a columnist for the Sunday Times (London).
