STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
People hosting Thanksgiving this year face two basic challenges. One is making sure that people travel and gather safely, and another is paying for the food. Economist Roger Cryan says the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner is up 14%.
ROGER CRYAN: If you look at the items other than the turkey, they only went about 6.6%, which is pretty close to the CPI inflation that was reported recently. It was about 6.2%. So the real biggest element was the turkey. Turkey went up about 24%.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Roger Cryan knows this because he works for the American Farm Bureau Federation, and it does an annual survey of Thanksgiving meals.
CRYAN: Higher prices are really being driven by a couple of things. It's the supply chain issues, which are raising the costs of a lot of things because it's making it harder to produce a lot of things. But there's also a monetary impact. The current inflation is also being affected by the increase in the money supply over the last year and a half.
INSKEEP: Yeah, the government has spent a lot of money to keep the economy running during the pandemic. The Fed also created a lot of money, and there is a side effect.
CRYAN: Inflation is always a challenge for folks on a fixed budget. It is - a lot of the programs that support people in need are at least eventually indexed on inflation.
MARTIN: But there is one kind of person who may save a bit this Thanksgiving, someone like me who got busy and had to put off buying the ingredients.
CRYAN: Last week, this week, promotions are kicking in, and we expect a lot of folks will be able to find a good deal when they go to the store if they haven't bought their turkey yet.
INSKEEP: Procrastination pays.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "INFLATION BLUES")
B B KING: (Singing) Got those inflation blues. You know, I'm not one of those... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.