Ahead of Thanksgiving and amid frustration among American consumers over affordability, President Trump has recently insisted, often wrongly, that prices and costs were coming down.
“I want for people to recognize a great job that I’ve done on pricing, on affordability, because we brought prices way down,” he said at an event billed as the McDonald’s Impact Summit on Monday.
But that was false. Overall prices have increased under Mr. Trump, with the Consumer Price Index up 3 percent in September over the same time last year.
“President Trump is just getting started implementing the policies that created historic economic prosperity in his first term, and Americans can rest assured that the best is yet to come,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said in a statement.
Here is a fact check of some of the president’s recent claims.
What Was Said
“Walmart just announced that the cost of their standard Thanksgiving meal is reduced by 25 percent this year from last year.” — in a speech at an investment forum on Wednesday
This is misleading. While it is true that Walmart announced that this year’s Thanksgiving meal — its annual basket of items for a holiday spread — would cost 25 percent less than last year’s, the contents of this year’s basket were considerably different.
Walmart, which began offering the basket in 2022, said in a news release last year that its Thanksgiving meal then included 29 items, which totaled about $55. This year’s basket included 22 items, totaling just under $40 — a decrease of about 25 percent.
The baskets also included different items, different brands and different sizes. For example, the 2024 basket included a frozen turkey weighing between 10 and 16 pounds at a cost of $0.88 per pound, while the 2025 basket includes a 13.5-pound turkey at a cost of $0.97 per pound. The 2025 basket does not include nine of the 2024 items, but added four new items. And among items in both years’ baskets, fried onions and mushroom soup came in smaller amounts this year.
The 29 items in Walmart’s 2024 basket cost $49 on Nov. 21, before tax and including current special deals. That’s 7 percent lower than last year. (Prices for items may vary by location and date; FactCheck.org recreated the basket on Nov. 12 at a cost of $51.)
The American Farm Bureau, which has tracked prices since the 1980s, estimated that the cost of a Thanksgiving meal is down 5 percent from last year, marking the third consecutive year with a decline since a record high in 2022.
What Was Said
“According to the U.S.D.A., turkey is down, think of that, 33 percent.” — in the Wednesday speech
False. It’s not clear what Mr. Trump was referring to, but the Agriculture Department’s data shows that the cost of turkey has risen, not declined.
For the week ending on Nov. 21, the most recent available data, a fresh young hen cost $1.66 per pound wholesale and a frozen hen $1.68 per pound wholesale. Those prices are up from $1.18 per pound for fresh turkey and $0.98 per pound for frozen turkey in the week ending Nov. 15, 2024.
A recent report from Purdue University estimated that wholesale turkey prices had surged by 75 percent since last year, driven by avian flu outbreaks. But, the report noted, retailer discounts may cause greater variation in prices at the grocery store. In fact, inexpensive turkeys are often used as an enticement known as “loss leaders.”
The Farm Bureau survey estimated that the price of a 16-pound turkey was $25.67 in 2024, compared with $21.50 this year, about a 16 percent decline.
What Was Said
“Gasoline is way down. I think you’ll be seeing $2 gasoline, but we’re now at $2.50, $2.45, some are lower than that. It was $4.50, $5, $6, $3.50, $3.75 under Biden.” — in a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday
This is exaggerated. The average price of gas hit a record high in June 2022, at $5 a gallon, before declining. And while gas prices have decreased slightly since Mr. Trump took office this year, he is overstating the decline and understating the prices under his administration.
The average price of gas in the United States hasn’t fallen below $2.50 since early 2021, when former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. took office, according to data from the Energy Information Administration, a government statistics agency.
The lowest average gas price of Mr. Trump’s second term came in the week ending Oct. 20, at $3.02 per gallon — 50 cents more than Mr. Trump had claimed. In the week ending Nov. 17, the average price was $3.06 per gallon. That was a 1.6 percent decrease from $3.11 for the week ending Jan. 20 and a tiny increase from $3.05 at the same point last year.
What Was Said
“In the past six months, the price of breakfast items has fallen 14 percent. Bread prices are down. Dairy prices are down. And the price of eggs has declined 86 percent since March.” — at the McDonald’s Impact Summit on Monday
This needs context. Mr. Trump is correct that the prices of some breakfast items have declined, but he is omitting that the prices of other staples have increased.
Mr. Trump appeared to be citing a report from DoorDash, the food delivery company, that estimated a 14 percent decline in the company’s “Breakfast Basics Index,” which includes three eggs, a glass of milk, a bagel and an avocado. That spread cost $5.07 in March, compared with $4.35 in September, based on data from retailers consistently available on DoorDash. The prices of eggs and avocados declined, driving the dip in the index, while the prices of bagels and milk were virtually unchanged.
DoorDash’s data also tracks with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows a 44 percent decline in the price of eggs from March to September and a 34 percent decline in the Producer Price Index for avocados from April to August. (The wholesale price of eggs has declined even more dramatically, from $8.07 a dozen in late February to $2.22 a dozen in mid-November.)
The average price of white bread has declined by 3 percent from January to September, while the price of milk has increased by about 2.6 percent.
The costs of many other breakfast items not mentioned by Mr. Trump have increased since he took office: coffee by 30 percent as of September, bacon by 3.5 percent, oranges by 18 percent and potatoes by 4 percent.
Overall grocery prices — measured as “food at home” — were up 2.7 percent in September over the same time last year.
Linda Qiu is a Times reporter who specializes in fact-checking statements made by politicians and public figures. She has been reporting and fact-checking public figures for nearly a decade.
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