Everything these days is political, even Thanksgiving dinner.
It’s going to be more expensive this year, Republicans complain, because of Joe Biden’s inflation.
There’s certainly reason to argue that Democratic policies have contributed to higher inflation rates. The push to increase wages among middle and low-income workers, for example, caused lots of manufacturers, restaurants, retailers and other businesses to raise prices.
But a bigger factor, most economists agree, is the pandemic, specifically COVID-related glitches and shortages – shortages of materials to make products, shortages of factory workers, shortages of truckers to bring those products to stores, of workers to service or sell the products, and so on.
Now, one could argue that President Biden – and President Donald Trump before him – could have done more to fix supply chain issues.
Also, one could argue that the refusal of so many Republicans to be vaccinated for the COVID-19 virus made the pandemic and our economic troubles much worse.
Or you could take a turn in the discussion and argue that tariffs – which drive up costs for consumers – were a culprit. Those tariffs, you might remember, were mandated by Trump and mostly maintained by Biden.
Inflation and rising consumer prices are complex issues with lots of causes and lots of effects.
Rather than sort through those issues, however, most Democrats and Republicans prefer to just blame the other guys. It’s easier, frankly.
Much of the media are eager to cooperate and already have started reporting on how inflation is ruining Thanksgiving this year. Inflation – a nonissue for so long – gives them what we call a fresh angle.
But perhaps the fresh angle isn’t the best angle to view the issue.
I’d like to suggest that Thanksgiving dinner in America is still cheap.
The annual American Farm Bureau price check put the traditional turkey dinner with sides and dessert at $53.31 for a family of 10.
True, that figure is up significantly – 14 percent — from last year.
But it’s still about $5.50 a person.
Perhaps I’m out of touch, but that doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
None of us like to see grocery prices increase, and they definitely have gone up.
The cost of eating at restaurants and prices for other food prepared outside the home have increased even more.
Yet Americans spend relatively little on food, compared to most of the world. Certainly, the income gap between rich and poor in the United States warps what this kind of statistic means, but overall, Americans spend less than 10 percent of their disposable income on food prepared at home.
I want to stress again that the numbers for families vary a lot, depending on income, food choices, eating out versus cooking at home, and so on.
And hard statistics that take into account recent price increases are hard to come by.
But the numbers are clear that food in this country is plentiful, varied and relatively affordable.
The abundance and cheapness of food is no accident. Nor is it the result of any ingenious policy championed by one political party or a special set of politicians.
Plentiful, affordable food is the work of farmers, science, business and government all working to create an integrated system that has served consumers well.
It’s also true that everyone – farmers, scientists, businesses and consumers – agrees that the system could be better, although what the improvements should look like are open to discussion and debate.
Maybe this Thanksgiving, Americans could stop arguing long enough to remember how lucky we are to think that a $5.50 Thanksgiving feast is reason to complain.
A Plains View 