Alabama Has The Most Expensive Thanksgiving

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Nov 18, 8:50AM EST

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Alabama Has The Most Expensive Thanksgiving — © Courtesy of Popeyes

Every year, the American Farm Bureau Federation collects and publishes data on what a Thanksgiving dinner costs. The information is widely published by the media a week before the holiday. This year, the cost is $61.17 for ten people. That is down 4.5 from 2022. However, this number is an average for the country. It does not provide the cost from city to city or state to state.

Casino.org took it upon itself to examine the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner by state. It did not offer a count for the number of people in what it called a “household.” Rather, it gave a raw number. Nationwide, that figure was $107.

The survey was based on questioning 2,500 people earlier this month. It asked these people about their “planned budget.” Among the weaknesses of the study is that it does not break out what foods people include for their celebrations the way the American Farm Bureau Federation does.

The state where people will spend the most on Thanksgiving dinners is Alabama at $177. Kentucky follows Alabama at $175 and Maryland at $139.

At the far end of the spectrum, people who will spend the least hosting Thanksgiving are the residents of Arkansas at $40, followed by Tennessee at $65 and Kansas at $67.

The study does not make much sense. Alabama ranks 45th in the US, measured by household income at $53,913. States with low median incomes also tend to have low costs of living. Kentucky is no better off in terms of prosperity. It ranks 43rd in median household income at $55.573. Maryland makes more sense as a state with a costly Thanksgiving dinner. It ranks first in median household income among all states at $90,203.

The Casino.org study is fun to read. However, it is hard to believe that it is accurate.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.