President Donald Trump keeps touting the fact that Walmart’s promotional Thanksgiving meal basket is cheaper this year than it was last year. But Trump hasn’t mentioned that this year’s basket is different than last year’s – in particular, that it contains significantly fewer items.
This year’s basket contains 15 products, six fewer than the 21 products in the 2024 basket. If you’re counting each individual item (like each can of green beans) separately, it’s 22 items this year compared to 29 items last year. In addition, items from Walmart’s “Great Value” store brand make up a greater percentage of this year’s basket than last year’s, which included a larger proportion of name brands.
Trump has been discussing “affordability” in the wake of Republican defeats in various state and local elections Tuesday in which many victorious Democratic candidates campaigned on the cost of living. To support his frequent false claim that grocery prices are “way down” since he returned to office, Trump said Wednesday and Thursday that Walmart announced that its Thanksgiving meal basket this year is 25% cheaper than the Biden-era 2024 version.
Walmart did announce a 25% reduction. It is offering this year’s basket for under $40, down from last year’s price of around $55.
But aside from the fact that any one company’s holiday promotion is not a good measure of the state of US inflation, the price of Walmart’s Thanksgiving basket is an especially poor proxy – because the composition of the basket changes every Thanksgiving.
Last year’s basket had a pre-made pecan pie as well as ingredients to make a pumpkin pie, the Walmart website shows; this year’s basket does not include the pecan pie. Last year’s basket had both russet potatoes and sweet potatoes; this year’s basket does not include the sweet potatoes. Last year’s basket had two cans of cream of mushroom soup; this year’s basket has one can.
This year’s basket also omits some other items included in last year’s basket, including miniature marshmallows, corn muffin mix, fresh onions and fresh celery stalks, and it includes fresh cranberries instead of slightly more expensive cranberry sauce.
It’s not all subtraction. This year’s basket adds an extra can of green beans and some items that last year’s basket didn’t have, such as a pre-made stuffing mix, fresh carrots, and three boxes of macaroni and cheese. It also includes a (13.5-pound) Butterball turkey; no brand was specified for the (10-to-16-pound) turkey in the promotion last year.
Walmart declined to comment on the president’s claims or the changes in the composition of the basket. Its press release announcing the 2025 promotion says the new basket serves 10 people, compared to the eight people it said were served by last year’s basket, and that it is the company’s “best offer” since it started the Thanksgiving promotion in 2022 – featuring “generous portions of turkey, stuffing, traditional sides, rolls and dessert ingredients.”
Readers can certainly debate how the quality and quantity of this year’s Walmart basket compares to last year’s. What is not debatable is the fact that overall grocery prices have increased during Trump’s second term despite his regular claims that they have declined.
As of the most recent Consumer Price Index figures, for September, average grocery prices were about 2.7% higher than they were a year prior and about 1.4% higher than they were in January, the month Trump returned to office. Average grocery prices rose 0.3% from August to September after a 0.6% increase from July to August, which was the biggest month-to-month jump in three years.
Trump has falsely claimed that beef is the only grocery product whose price has increased. In fact, the Consumer Price Index shows dozens of other grocery products have also become more expensive over the last year and since January.
