| 2023* | 9.8% |
| 2016 | 9.6% |
| 2012 | 10.0% |
| 2000 | 13.6% |
| 1984 | 14.0% |
* BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey. 2023 is the most recent year available; due to the government shutdown, 2024 figures are delayed until December.
Two first-hand accounts of the 1621 “First Thanksgiving” event survive, both concise one-paragraph reports. Despite the Pilgrims’ austerely religious reputation, both are secular pieces focusing on the food and the participants. Governor Bradford mentions ducks, “great store of wild Turkies, of which they tooke many,” plus venison, “about a peck a meale a weeke to a person,” and “Indean corn.” His lieutenant Edward Winslow, relating the event to friends in Britain, adds codfish, bass, and the five deer Massasoit and his 90 sachems carried in. Neither mentions cranberries or pumpkin pie. Winslow’s conclusion does, though, offer some reflection on the Pilgrims’ good fortune that year:
“And although it be not always so plentifull, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie.”
Four centuries on, the BLS says that as of 2023, Americans spent on average $6,050 a year on “food at home,” and another $3,930 eating out. Taking all these together, the ‘food price’ burden on American families — that is, the cost of food relative to income — has fallen by half since the 1970s and by about 75% in the last century, but not at all over the last decade:
| Year | Food Budget | “Food at Home” Only |
| 2023 | 9.8% | 5.9% |
| 2016 | 9.6% | 5.4% |
| 2010 | 9.8% | 5.8% |
| 2000 | 13.6% | 6.8% |
| 1984 | 14.0% | 8.4% |
| 1973 | 19.1% | n/a |
| 1950 | 26.7% | n/a |
| 1918 | 38.3% | n/a |
In sum, a very long period of falling food costs appears to have stopped somewhere in the 2010s, and meals now take a bit more of American families’ income than they did during the Obama presidency. This year’s bill is likely to be higher still. BLS won’t have this year’s consumer spending stats for a while, but the Economic Research Service predicts that food prices will end 2025 about 3% higher than they were last year. So American families aren’t wrong to feel pressure from rising food costs, nor to worry that government policy is pushing them up: tariffs appear to be adding about $1 billion a month to food costs.
Nonetheless, most Americans are still “farre from want.” And as they prepare for this Thursday’s Thanksgiving observance, they have many more choices than the turkeys, fish, corn, and venison available to the Pilgrims and Wampanoags. In that spirit, we wish PPI’s readers, friends, and critics a joyful holiday.
Then:
The Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth has two contemporary notes on the first Thanksgiving.
Now:
The Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service reports that Americans spent $2.92 trillion on food last year, with 81% grown, ranched, or otherwise produced locally and 19% brought in from abroad. The 19% “international” share divides into two parts:
Tariffs:
According to the USDA’s “Global Agricultural Trade System,” Americans bought $212 billion worth of agricultural goods from abroad last year. Seafood, considered a ‘natural resource’ in their accounting, added $25 billion more.
Tariff collection on these products has jumped by about $1 billion a month since Mr. Trump’s April 2 “international emergency” decree: $290 million in August 2024; $1.25 billion in August 2025. With about $20 billion in food products a month, tariffs overall appear to be adding about 5% to the cost of imported food. This month’s retreat on coffee, bananas, cocoa beans, beef, etc. will ease that a bit, but a threatened new 91% tariff on Italian pasta (on top of the 15% coming from the most recent version of the April 2 decree) in January will add some back. More on this one next month.
Data:
BLS’ Consumer Expenditure Survey tells you how much Americans spend, and what they spend it on.
USDA’s “Global Agricultural Trade System” tallies ag exports and imports.
USITC’s Dataweb reports tariff collection (“calculated duties”) by product.
And the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s “FAOSTAT” system provides a worldwide context.
And last:
George Washington’s 470-word 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation — the U.S. government’s first official Thanksgiving observance — came a year after the approval of the Constitution and four days after the first session of Congress closed down. Washington’s government and Congress had achieved quite a lot that year, setting up government departments, creating a revenue system and the Customs Service, organizing federal courts, etc. He strikingly doesn’t brag about it, but instead asks the public to join him in seeking forgiveness for national misdeeds, living up to responsibilities, and trying to do better:
“… that we may unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions — to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually — [and] to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed.”
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
