Dinner cost 2024

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

That big 2022 spike in the cost of Thanksgiving dinner (yesterday's post) didn't continue, thankfully. Last year the cost declined a bit, and this year the cost declined a bit more. The Farm Bureau makes the point, however, that we're still paying more than we ever paid any time before 2022 (image).

 

How these average prices impact us has been figured out in a practical way by economist Gale Pooley. He compares average prices to average wages paid to workers at the time.

 

It's a good measure of what these prices actually mean to people at the time of the survey. He calls this measure of what it costs the "time price," meaning the amount of time an average worker would have to work to purchase this dinner.

Average wage in 1986 was $8.96 per hour, so a wage earner then paid for their 1986 dinner with about 3.2 hours of work. Today in 2024 the average wage is $30.48 per hour. So an average wage earner pays for that dinner today with about 1.9 hours of work.

In general terms, Americans are finding it more affordable to pay for that dinner than we did thirty-eight years ago. How did that happen? Innovation and improvement in agriculture, transport, manufacturing, all the businesses that touch our dinner in some way.

from Doomslayer