As President Joe Biden prepares to leave office in January, his administration’s legacy of surging inflation has delivered another year of increased Christmas food prices for Americans.
Various Christmas meal staples will be costlier this year, according to an end-of-year report from Expana, the world’s largest IOSCO-assured agrifood price reporting agency. Expana’s Main Meal Index, which tracks the prices of popular holiday grocery items such as shrimp, beef, pork, lamb, carrots and potatoes, increased by 2.3% year-over-year.
Expana’s “Gingerbread Index,” which follows the prices of wheat, sugar, butter, eggs, cassia and ginger, rose by 5.5% in November. The average price for bone-in hams also rose to $0.91 per pound last month — a staggering 8.3% increase from this time last year.
The average marketplace prices of potatoes experienced a slight uptick in November as well, increasing by 1.6% year-over-year to $0.50 a pound, according to Expana. Meanwhile, turnips experienced a 1.4% price increase at $1.45 per pound, while sweet potato prices rose by an average of 2.6% in November, reaching $0.50 per pound.
Prices have increased dramatically since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, with inflation hitting a peak of 9.1% in June 2022 — the same year that food prices in the U.S. increased faster than any year since 1979, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Although inflation has cooled throughout 2024, it has remained above the federal government’s 2% target — meaning many businesses and consumers in the U.S. have continued to experience financial strain brought on by the stubbornly high prices under the Biden-Harris administration. Some economists have attributed hefty government spending under the current administration to fueling high inflation rates.
The Consumer Price Index, a measure of the price of everyday goods, rose 2.7% in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The food index also rose last month, increasing by 0.4%, the BLS data shows.
The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs increased by 1.7% in November, with the index for beef increasing by 3.1% and the index for eggs rising 8.2%, according to the BLS. The price of eggs alone surged year-over-year, costing $3.65 for a carton of a dozen large grade A eggs in November, which is up from $2.14 in November 2023, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). The average cost of a dozen eggs was $1.48 in December 2020, according to FRED.
It’s not just increased food prices that are straining consumers — some dollar stores have recently reported softened demand and increased financial stress among their lower-income consumers. Many Americans are facing high costs when shopping for goods in preparation for this holiday season.
Despite the inflated prices, consumer spending during winter holidays this year is projected to reach an average of $902 per person — a record high — across food, gifts, decorations and other seasonal items, according to a survey from the National Retail Federation.
Other holiday-related goods increased in cost too, with consumers projected to spend an average of $79.31 on real Christmas trees this year, about $4 more than what they spent in 2023, according to Finder. Christmas tree sales have dipped the past few years as consumers have scaled back on discretionary spending, according to ModernRetail. Demand for Christmas trees in the U.S. is forecast to decline by 1.5% on an annual basis through 2028, according to a June report from Freedonia Group.
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