![Pam Lewison says it is good to see the overall cost of this year’s Independence Day meal drop back down to a more affordable price per person.](https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Large_Clark-County-Today-Fourth-of-July-cookouts-are-less-expensive-than-last-year.jpg)
Pam Lewison says it is good to see the overall cost of this year’s Independence Day meal drop back down to a more affordable price per person
Pam Lewison
Washington Policy Center
This year’s Fourth of July cookout will cost the average consumer less than a year ago but is still up about 14 percent on the 2021 cost.
![Pam Lewison](https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/story_Clark-County-Today-Pam-Lewison-300x300.jpg)
The American Farm Bureau Federation reported a family cookout will cost approximately $6.77 per person this year, or $67.73 for a 10-person get together. The federation began keeping track of cookout costs in 2013. Last year’s estimated cookout cost set a record for the 10-year-old survey, breaking the piggy bank at $81.12 total or $8.11 per person.
Cookouts look different to everyone, but the American Farm Bureau Federation lays out a pretty solid menu for their pricing estimates including cheeseburgers, cookies, ice cream, strawberries, potato chips, chicken breast, pork chops, pork and beans, lemonade, and potato salad. Cherry pie must be a George, Wash. thing.
According to farm bureau estimates, a cheeseburger – meat, cheese, and bun – will run $1.73 each. If you want to get fancy with fixings – lettuce, tomato, pickles, caramelized onions, and sauce – that’s extra. Other proteins – chicken breast and pork chops – will add an additional $0.81 and $1.44 respectively to the per person tally.
The survey notes there are several factors that influence the cost of food including drought, supply, and inflation. Beef and spuds are scarce courtesy of increased feed and drought. Most processed foods, like packaged hamburger buns, have increased in price from last year, with one notable exception: pre-packaged cookies.
Less than $7 per person put into a global perspective should remind everyone how lucky we are to live in the United States. American households spend about 7 percent of their total income on food whereas in parts of the developing world food can take up to 60 percent of a household’s budget.
Whether you let freedom ring with a cheeseburger, ribs, or apple pie, it is good to see the overall cost of this year’s Independence Day meal drop back down to a more affordable price per person. Happy 247th Birthday America!
Pam Lewison is the director of the Center for Agriculture at the Washington Policy Center.
Also read:
- Letter: For the public record and the Comprehensive PlanIn a July 12 letter to the Clark County Council, Clark County Citizens United President Susan Rasmussen shares that primary stakeholders were ignored in the Wetland and Habitat Ordinance Conservation Covenant.
- Opinion: Supreme Court gives Vancouver a new tool to use in its homelessness efforts, but will the city use it?Most Vancouver residents do not want homelessness to be criminalized but they do want a response when some in the homeless community commit crimes, and a new ruling by the United States Supreme court is a tool the city could use to help neighborhoods.
- Opinion: Has transit entered the “death spiral?”Transit ridership dropped sharply with the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020. The slow rebound in the years that followed has prompted discussion, sometimes in hushed tones, as to whether transit had entered a “death spiral.”
- POLL: Should the city of Vancouver do more to protect citizens who have been victims of harassment, or worse, from those living homeless on the streets?Should the city of Vancouver do more to protect citizens who have been victims of harassment, or worse, from those living homeless on the streets?
- Opinion: How bad is freeway speeding?Target Zero Manager Doug Dahl answers a question about the commonplace of freeway speeding in Washington state.