A Thanksgiving dinner for under $6? How prices have changed since 1950
You’re at your local supermarket, getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. You make a final pass through the list, making sure you have everything you need.
Turkey, check. Dinner rolls, check. Cranberry sauce (canned, of course), check. Pumpkin pie, check.
You run into your neighbor while waiting in line to pay. He tells you he’s excited to have his family in town, but he’s a bit stressed about all the preparations, as it’s the first time he’s in charge of making the turkey.
It’s already your turn to pay.
How much?
Yes, you read that right.
You could pay for an entire Thanksgiving dinner with little more than a $5 bill — if you lived in 1950s America.
Of course, today, things have changed. Americans are projected to pay almost $78 for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner this year.
However, you don’t have to go all the way back to 1950 to buy an affordable Thanksgiving meal. Back in 2019, Thanksgiving was much more affordable than today.
Turkey and pumpkin pies were not the only items that were cheaper in 1950 and 2019, as a dollar would buy you much more back then than today.
So let’s take a quick trip back in time and see how expensive life was and, most importantly, why prices today are much higher.
How much did a dollar buy you in 1950?
If we could time travel back to postwar America, we would quickly find that our money would buy you far more than it does today.
Let’s take a look at how much life cost back in 1950:
- The median American paid around $35 per month in rent.
- You could buy a porterhouse steak for 89 cents a pound.
- A cheeseburger from then little-known McDonald’s was around 15 cents.
- You could go watch Disney’s newest animated movie, “Cinderella,” for less than 50 cents.
Today, you need much more than a couple hundred dollars for rent or a few bucks to eat and watch a movie.
With prices as low as those, it could be fair to ask: Was everyone rich?
Not really. People spent less — but they also earned less.
In 1950, the average American family earned $3,300, which means that a $35 monthly rent cost much more than it would for an average American today.
If you really want to compare, you must look at real income, which balances the price tags for inflation.
Once you look at real income, you’ll quickly find out that Americans today are better off than those in the 1950s.
As the country and the economy grew, prices and incomes steadily increased across the years, which is what happened in America between 1950 and 2024.
However, a dollar bought you far more in 2019.
You don’t need a time machine to know that life was more affordable five years ago than it is today. Back in 2019, the average American paid:
- $1,435 for the average rent — today it’s $1,712.
- Around $7.50 for a pound of steak — today it’s around $10.50.
- One dollar for a McDonald’s cheeseburger — today it costs more than $3.
Between 2019 and 2024, your money has lost almost a quarter of its value. Unlike the 1950 comparison, however, people are not better off today than five years ago.
Real incomes are falling behind for individual Americans and households as inflation rose at levels we hadn’t seen since the 1970s.
Prices didn’t rise because the American economy grew at an unprecedented, breakneck speed; they rose because Washington recklessly spent a record-breaking amount of money in just a few years.
Bidenomics was a political decision still hurting millions of Americans’ finances.
What’s the best way to stop inflation and prevent it from happening again?
Stop the government from irresponsibly spending trillions of dollars and making millions of Americans pay for the consequences.
That’s precisely what Americans for Prosperity is doing.
As the nation’s largest grassroots organization, AFP advocates for policies to eliminate government waste and make life more affordable.
One major opportunity in 2025?
Extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law by President Trump.
As you may know, we face a looming fiscal cliff in 2025 — a series of fiscal deadlines that could devastate our economy, including the expiration of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which expires next year.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act put billions of dollars back into the pockets of Americans like you — and they helped millions of small businesses thrive.
Extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is just one of the many critical fiscal decisions we face next year that will have an enormous impact on America’s present and future prosperity — and AFP will be at every step of the way, pushing for good policies for all Americans.
If you want to join the movement and fight for less government spending and more prosperity, click here to see how you can help bring real solutions for millions of Americans.
