Absent a stronger social safety net, maybe low-income families should just have Thanksgiving dinner every day.
The average cost of this year’s turkey meal for 10 is projected to drop by 4.5%, from $64.05 last year to $61.17, according to the American Farm Bureau, with the price of the bird itself down 5.6% thanks to the decline of the avian flu.
On the other side of the ledger, the U.S. Agriculture Department reported that at-home food prices were up 2.4% in September year over year, and that “food-at-home prices are predicted to increase 5.1%” this year.
That 5.1% jump compares to just a 3.6% increase in the maximum food stamp allotment for a family of four in New York and most other states, from $939 a month to $973 a month for the federal fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
The bottom line: With this year’s Thanksgiving dinner costing about $6.12 per person and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimating food stamps supply an average of $6.20 per day, the math for poor Americans doesn’t work, for the holiday or any other day – unless they skip breakfast and lunch.
But none of that really should matter. Other data show we shouldn’t be quibbling about the cost of a turkey dinner or any other meal for any American, because we have the capacity to do so much better.
According to worlddata.info, the United States has the seventh highest average annual income in the world at $76,370. We trail only the tax-haven Monaco, Bermuda – with its off-shore financial services, Ireland and a few Scandinavian countries.
When it comes to overall wealth, the U.S. fares even better. Our average of $551,347 puts us second, behind only Switzerland, according to statista.com.
Yet despite all of this wealth, the nine food pantries of Catholic Charities of Buffalo are serving more people, especially after the expiration of pandemic-related supplemental food stamp benefits early this year, according to Senior Director Julie Lulek.
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