Turkey Propaganda

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”

~ Mark Twain

I’ll keep this brief, dear reader. I know you’ve got plenty on your plate today with Thanksgiving preparations. But let me ask you this—do you think you can feed your entire gathering tonight for just $58?

NBC News seems convinced. In fact, they believe $58 is all you need to feed 10 people. That’s right—10 people. Take a look and see for yourself.

NBC News:

The costs of this year's holiday feast - estimated at $58.08 for a 10-person gathering, or $5.81 a head - dropped 5% since last year, the lowest level since 2021.

NBC News wants you to believe that 10 people can sit down to Thanksgiving dinner for just $58, or $5.80 a person. I mean, is this 1942? This kind of nonsense is exactly how you ended up with Trump, NBC News.

So, I went over to X, and of course, it was filled with other media outlets parroting the same absurdity. I mean, we shouldn’t be surprised, right? After all, these numbers are coming from one of the “respectable” NGOs, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF).

The backlash on X was brutal. Here’s just one example...

Yep, this is about right. Although, if we’re being honest, adding another zero to that $58.08—bringing it up to $580.80—would probably be much closer to the truth for many 10-person Thanksgiving gatherings.

Now, I couldn’t believe they could get it so wrong, so I decided to dig a little deeper into the data. And sure enough, it’s all true. Not only is the AFBF claiming you can feed 10 people for just $58, but they also say that Thanksgiving dinner prices are way down compared to 2023 and 2022.

Imagine that! Here we were thinking America’s facing a cost of living crisis… I guess we’ll just have to take the word of NBC News and the AFBF.

Now, I’m not sure what AFBF's exact methodology is here—probably pretty questionable if I had to guess—but when you’re parroting statements like that and you’re NBC News, you’d better preface it with a heavy dose of disclaimers.

And here’s what we do know: the average price of just the turkey is around $30. We also know that its price isn’t just up from last year and the year before—it’s at an all-time high. Take a look at the graph below.

If we compare turkey prices to 2019, they’ve actually gone up by 124%.

At around $30 for the turkey, that leaves just $28 for the rest—trimmings, drinks, and all the other goodies. So, unless you've got a time machine handy, you're probably going to have a hard time making that arithmetic work for your family tonight… no matter what news outlets like NBC News say.

But let’s not let all that propaganda take away from a wonderful Thanksgiving day!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, my dear reader!