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7524842 Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter busy busy show coming up for today After the 930 news Liz Pancani from Groundwork Collaborative is gonna join us.
We're gonna talk about Thanksgiving prices
Yes, and a really really eye-opening report that was done that we were given during it for our prep that shows that no matter who says it
when you crunch the numbers and all the data, the prices are going up, the prices of Thanksgiving items have gone up.
And that is a problem for regular Americans like me and
you.
Liz is going to join us after 9 30.
Next hour, hour number two, Dr. Gabriel Vales is going to Vales is going to be joining us.
And we're going to talk about teens and technology,
which
I it's such an important conversation,
and
especially the day before Thanksgiving, when half of the table will be on their phones the entire time.
Yeah.
What are they doing on those phones?
And is it good for them?
That and more questions from Grandma Jane coming up in the second hour.
You
kids.
I, you know, I won't, I'll say this right now because this is a funnier story and this is actually a very important topic we're talking about, especially in light of things like the cell phone ban coming through for Wisconsin schools and just basic concerns about technology, not just honestly for kids, yes, but for everyone I feel, but one, my mom used to be a very big like, get off your phones, get off your phones, get off your phones.
Why are you on your phones?
Like constantly and we're like, this is just.
kind of what life is now.
This is what we do.
And if we talked all the time, disconcerting.
One time I got her on her iPad, she was on her iPad and we were all like, I'm like, get off your iPad, get off your iPad, get off your iPad.
Mom.
Mom.
Why
don't you love us?
Why don't you want to talk to us?
So we're going to talk about teens and tech and us and tech.
Yeah.
In hour number two, for the last half an hour, we will lighten it up as we always do
with
audio sorbet, where we take a breath and get away from the harder news.
On the creator,
of Mousetrap and Lightbrite has died.
Didn't he do another one too?
Was there?
Rockum
Sockum robots.
That was a
weird
game.
It was a weird game.
He has passed away at the age of 99.
So we started talking about the kids we loved, the toys we loved playing with as kids.
Yeah.
And if you have kids or grandkids other than technology related stuff, what do they play with?
Yeah.
We're genuinely curious.
Yeah, we'd love to know that.
We'd love to know what the, what are the youth doing today?
And we'll be consulting with our resident young person, Calvin, although you are starting to graduate out of resident young person.
He is
approaching, you know,
30.
You're approaching
that age of, oh, I didn't know you were that old.
We will wrap up the show.
Also, as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing.
Today we're just calling this that's revolting edition.
I'm trying to remember now.
There's so much happening.
Hold on.
Let me look at the story.
Unless you think of something else.
No, no, no.
I mean, I trust you.
You are an award-winning journalist.
I'm not
a journalist.
Do you
never want to award for journalism?
No.
Okay.
Well, you're an award-winning and legendary voice of radio who's leaving us in two weeks.
Retiring.
Retiring.
Two weeks from Friday.
So be here for the next two weeks.
We're gonna have a lot of fun.
A lot of people.
Oh, what's it?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's revolting.
Yeah, it is Thanksgiving related.
So if you can stick around for that, please do.
Also, just another reminder.
If you
have not yet downloaded the Civic Media app.
I haven't, Jane.
You
can't play.
Jane, you know what?
OK, listen to me.
Listen to me right now.
I understand that I'm not allowed to win any prizes in the text-to-win contest for what I hear one is coming very, very, very soon.
Very soon.
I understand I can't win.
Unfair.
But also, what if I just want to check out, you know, the stations we have around the network or news stories or things like that?
Can't I get the Civic Media app?
Everyone.
can get the Civic Media app.
It is... App.
Absolutely free.
And it is going to be the way that you are going to enter our next multi-state text-to-win contest.
Oh, yes.
Oh, boy.
Grown-up gift list.
Text-to-win contest starts next Monday.
Starts on Monday.
Gift number one, peace in this house.
Number two, please put things back where you found them.
Put the glass in the
dishwasher, not the sink.
That that would be on my wish list.
Yeah Yes, I mean we got great prizes for one thing It's a chance to text in and win 200 bucks in cash cash folks cash money and I cold case grand prize is include a snowblower stainless steel cookware set and a portable air conditioner
Some pretty nice stuff.
Oh boy.
So just make sure you download the Civic Media app, wherever you get your apps, download the Civic Media app.
So you are ready on Monday.
Once you download it, you pick your station, wherever you are, could be WAUK, could be WRJN, could be WISS, whichever.
And then we're going to have numerous times over the course of the day for you to enter.
There will be a keyword.
Yes.
And you want to text in that keyword.
Goes on for two weeks.
Lots of chances to win.
Many, many,
many chances.
So
many, many chances.
Sorry.
Couldn't help it.
So many chances coming up on Monday.
Also, just a little reminder.
If you live in the Ashland area and I know our friend and colleague, Tony Zimmerman is up there.
Oh, baby.
Yeah.
They are under a blizzard warning.
Yeah.
They're looking at snow.
today before four o'clock uh until four o'clock five to nine inches jeez tonight they're looking at less than half an inch but they've got gusting winds we have the gusting winds around here they're gusting up to like 35 miles an hour if you are heading out of the roads a lot of people are going to be traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday 511
It's
a website and it is an app as well.
You can download it directly to your phone as after you download the Civic Media app.
And the great thing about 511wi.gov is that you can not only see where there are road closures, you can see where there's construction.
You can pick and choose.
You can pick and choose.
You can also view various camera angles from around the state.
So if you are looking to see what's going on, check out your route.
you can actually pull up camera footage and see where it may affect you.
But 511wi.gov is a fantastic tool.
And get it on your phone or your device.
It's so
helpful.
It is.
And it's free.
And I'm just looking at 511wi.gov right now.
We've got a couple of things.
One thing around Madison, one thing around Janesville.
Surprisingly, no accidents reported again in northern Wisconsin along Lake Superior, which is where they're really getting sucked right now.
But please be careful.
if you're heading when you head out on the roads and refer to that 511.wi.gov.
It is a great resource.
And we've been inside for a few hours now.
I haven't been outside, I should say, for a few hours, but Southeastern Wisconsin, especially in Kenosha, we're going to hit pretty hard with wind.
A neighbor lost a tree.
Yeah, next door neighbor tree was blown down off the roots, like just out of the ground.
It's nothing else.
Everything else is fine from what I can see here.
Her car wasn't affected.
Thank goodness.
Yeah.
I mean, this was powerful enough wins to knock down a tree that is not super old, but also not super young.
So just, you know, the weather is changing.
We're coming into those days.
I'm not going to get in the climate change discussion, but it's all affecting in different ways, but just be careful.
Be, be aware.
511wi.gov.
Take
advantage of it.
And we also have great meteorologists here at Civic Media doing great work.
So just stay up to date and be safe.
Yeah, be safe.
We want you to have a good time.
Greg texting in on the live stream.
The wind is windy today.
It is very... Everything is windy.
Is that a
song?
Less bluster would be nice, but yeah, just be careful when you're out there.
The blustering is flusterating.
See what I did there?
I did work on it.
Everybody's a critic.
I'm leaving.
Everybody's a critic.
I'll be back tomorrow for our live show.
We wanted to spend a little time on this.
Sorry.
This from Wisconsin Public Radio.
Joe Schultz has the byline.
Foxconn planning $569 million expansion in Racine County that could create 1,300 jobs.
Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation offering up to 16 million in tax credits to support this expansion that will bring the total contract to $96 million.
We still trust Foxconn.
Yeah.
We do.
Well, no, okay.
When I said, yeah, that was more of a, yeah.
I think that, no, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, a believe it when I see it.
Right.
I do believe that under the leadership of the current WEDC, which no longer has Missy Hughes as the head, but she did a wonderful job of fixing that place that did not exist until Scott Walker came in office.
Sorry.
I feel like what they can do is bring a little more.
I mean, this seems more feasible than what Foxconn was coming in originally.
Like they were like, we were going to save the region.
This is going to be the thing.
the seventh wonder of the world.
Yeah.
And, and they really just wanted to get those gold shovels in the ground and then everyone started to just walked away.
But I'll believe it when I see it.
I'm hopeful and they've already got the land.
So let's see what they can do.
But again, if it doesn't work out, I will not be surprised because
Foxconn has a long, long celebrated history of duping municipalities in America.
They don't have a good reputation.
No, they don't.
Weedex says Foxconn will expand Wisconsin manufacturing footprint in Mount Pleasant and create more than 1300 jobs, which would be great, including factory and office workers.
Foxconn says it makes artificial intelligence servers in Mount Pleasant, because we haven't even been sure what they've been doing down there.
At first it was going to be big screens.
Yeah.
And then that went away.
Well, I think it's an all-purpose thing, honestly.
Like, I will say this.
My former years as a barber, I remember cutting the hair of a gentleman who was in charge of the facility at Foxconn, and he said that they had got up and running sooner than anyone knew.
because they didn't want, and I'm sorry if this sounds conspiracy theory, but like I trusted him because he gave me some weirdly specific details.
He said like they were just trying to work on whatever they wanted to work on without having to tell anybody.
So therefore there were no expectations because at the time that was a much fresher project.
So people had their eyes on them.
And eventually when we found out that it wasn't going to happen, we weren't going to get that, that median job of $73,000, then really
It became they get to do whatever they want.
Well, the
eye kind of moved away.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And so now it feels like it was more like an all purpose, whatever Foxconn wants to do.
So I am interested to see what they want to do.
I am interested to see if this happens.
If they can 1300 jobs in that region, that would be great.
That would be fantastic.
Yeah, it would.
Under the newest revision to the Foxconn contract with Wisconsin, the company could earn
Up to $96 million in state tax credits through 2029, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation says it's been committed to ensuring the company's success and growth.
This new amendment reflects Foxconn's status as one of the many leading global manufacturers that have chosen to grow in Wisconsin.
They want our water.
Yeah, they do.
I mean, that's understandable.
And Microsoft wants our water.
The data centers want our water.
And my concern and my question is, especially in the election year next year in 2026, is how are you going to make these plans viable and beneficial for the people of Wisconsin, not just tax breaks and look the other ways and changing parameters on what you were committed to doing?
How are the people of Wisconsin going to benefit from these deals?
That's what you get.
They're fiduciary responsibilities, lawmakers.
Details, details.
Yeah, right.
When we return.
Oh, PFAS back in the news.
We were just talking about this yesterday.
Here's a little update coming for you.
Stay with us.
You are listening to Matt there on air coming to across the civic media radio network.
We will be right back.
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We were talking about Foxconn has a new deal.
It looks like with Wisconsin, they're promising now 1300 jobs, which would be wonderful.
Hopefully that will happen.
Gene from Alclair wants to join us on the line.
Good morning, Gene.
What do you think about this Foxconn new
deal?
to break it to the people that are making these deals.
Fool me once.
Shame on you.
Fool me twice.
Shame on me.
No way, Jose.
All the BS that they pulled throughout the state of Wisconsin.
Remember, they purchased different little places, like even in Eau Claire.
Little satellites,
little satellite offices that were never staffed by anybody.
Nope.
And God darn it.
People need to call their representatives and say,
knock it off.
We've already been conned by Foxconn once.
Don't do it again.
Thanks guys for the information and you have a great holiday.
Bye.
You as well, Jane.
Thanks a lot.
By the way, we will be live tomorrow.
Yes,
we
will
be live.
Just as a
reminder.
We'll be, you're having a lot of fun.
It's going to be a little bit more of a laid back show.
We got Pat Crite low on for a full hour.
Maybe we can even just finagle him forever.
Just become a permanent co-host.
But, uh, honestly, Jane, you bring up a good point.
And the whole fool me one shame on you, but really when it's Foxconn, it was really fool me 14 times shame on us immediately because as soon as that story was broken, the, the, the discussion was the same company that has the netting around the world for, for employees in Asia, the same company that has duped other municipalities over and we're going to be next in line.
How is this going to, how is this going to be different?
How we, we can't change him.
We can't change him.
It's not a relationship.
You know what I mean?
Like, like they are who they are and they did what they did.
And I want to come with it, come to it with not faith, but just like a little bit of hope, but I won't be surprised if at the end of the day they're like
that.
Yeah.
If it doesn't come through, we'll see what happens with this.
This just, I stumbled on this this morning
on
social media as we were prepping for the show out of the Washington Post.
We were just talking about PFAS yesterday with Dr. Kristen Lierly.
We were just talking about water issues in Wisconsin because Wisconsin Republicans now want to regulate medical waste because they say so many abortion pills are getting into our water systems.
They don't mention anything about PFAS.
No.
Now the EPA, again from the Washington Post, just approved new forever chemical pesticides for use on food.
Critics warn these new approvals of new PFAS pesticides could expose more Americans to forever chemicals through their food.
This seems bad.
This seems irresponsible and criminal.
They're going to use these pesticides on veggies like romaine lettuce, broccoli, and potatoes.
EPA also announced they will relax a rule.
requiring companies to report all products containing PFAS and they've proposed weakening drinking water standards for PFAS.
Good news, French Island.
They're just going to change the standards.
So apparently then your water is going to be okay.
Good news, Nestle.
Good news, Coca-Cola.
Good news, bottled water companies.
That's what this is about.
No kidding.
I don't have, I have words.
a lot of them aren't FCC compliant, but listen to that.
Listen to how it's being said.
We're relaxing restrictions on the things that keep us safe, keep our kids safe.
This is okay.
How is doing this making America great again?
How is it making America healthy again?
And besides business, who does this benefit?
I mean, well, I would say the chemical companies.
That's what I mean though.
The businesses make out like bandits and let's
You know, the PFAS thing in Wisconsin, if you don't know, if you don't remember, because we've talked about this quite a few times over the past year plus, one of the reasons why we have 100, I don't even know if we still have it there anymore, but we had $125 million set aside for cleanup of waterways that were affected by PFAS.
It's been blocked permanently, or almost permanently now, because one of the things that the Republicans do not want to do, and the Democrats have not stood up and fought hard before, and hopefully maybe they will in 2026.
is the fact that the Republicans want to protect the businesses that are doing the poisoning of our waters.
It's part of the thing where they don't want to have to hold responsible those who are doing the actions that are polluting our waterways and messing up our environment.
We hate PFAs, we should get rid of them, but what if it's just John everybody in his pond and there's a PFA in there and then he's gonna, no, you don't care about him.
Because if you did, you'd say, hey, if you were an individual and it's a small thing, we remediate, we work through it.
But if we're talking about companies and they're actively poisoning our waters with their chemicals, they need to be held responsible.
But Robin Foss doesn't occur.
Well, no.
An EPA spokesperson said many fluorinated compounds registered or proposed for U.S.
pesticide use in recent years have unique benefits for farmers, users, and the public, but
Scientists caution, there's a lot that remains unknown about the health and environmental effects of fluorinated pesticides.
PFAS, of course, have already been linked to several kinds of cancer, birth defects, and damage to the liver and immune system among many other health problems.
Okay.
Why are our leaders not fighting for us and the health of the people and the children?
Because we
can't give them million-dollar donations.
Yes, absolutely.
And that is the
probably the most infuriating thing is that at time and time again, they side with money, the money and the other guys, not us.
News is coming up next.
And then when we return, Liz Pancani from Round Work Collaborative is going to be joining us.
We're going to talk about Thanksgiving and food prices.
That's all on the way.
Stay close.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Good morning and welcome back to Matt and Air on Air.
Jane, Matt and Air, Greg Bach, our resident young person Calvin on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
Join us at 855-752-4842.
Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
We're going to talk
prices, Thanksgiving prices.
Liz Pancotti is joining us from Groundwork Collaborative.
She at one point advised Senator Bernie Sanders on economic policy, also researched economic policy at the Roosevelt Institute, Employ America and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Her research has been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian.
Liz Pancotti, good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us.
How are
you?
Good morning.
Thanks so much for having me.
How are
you doing?
We are great.
Looking forward to talking about prices.
It's been interesting watching the messaging coming out of the White House because it does seem to run pretty counter to what Americans are experiencing.
We do have a little clip from Kevin Hassett from the Trump administration talking about the prices.
We're going to play that clip.
Calvin, please.
And as you know, President Trump and his team are out there pushing the truth every day and pushing back on these people.
But if you go back and look, one of my favorite moments on a Sunday show for me last week was on one of the Sunday shows.
You can look it up.
I won't attack the poor fellow that was the anchor.
He criticized the fact that Walmart said that the Thanksgiving dinner is cheaper.
I think it was about $10 for a typical Thanksgiving dinner.
And then he said, oh yeah, but they substituted generic stuff as if like having a generic something is a crime for ordinary folks.
It shows how out of touch these people
are.
That is loony tunes.
It's just loony.
I mean.
For one thing, the anchor didn't say, he wasn't saying, you know, generic is for losers.
He was saying that you cannot compare last year's Walmart Thanksgiving dinner to this year's because not only did they have fewer items, but they substituted name brands with generics.
And therefore the price was lower, right, Liz?
It is literally an apples to oranges comparison.
Yes, it's funny because the oranges there are fewer oranges than apples as you noted
right And I it's amazing to me that they continue this messaging because I follow a lot of accounts on social media This isn't catching on no matter how much they repeat it
No, I mean, I think the American public I went to the grocery store last night stocked up for Thanksgiving paid more than I paid last year People have I think really good memories of wow, you know, typically when I go to the grocery store to stock up for Thanksgiving It's a hundred bucks and this year it's 120 or 130 and I don't think that you know The president is doing this on on everything not just Thanksgiving prices but going around and saying the prices are lower.
I promise But at the same time he's also going around and
saying that affordability will be his 2026 concern, that he's really sorry he didn't get to witness for a year despite his campaign trail promises to lower prices on day one.
But don't worry, that's his New Year's resolution.
And I think the American people see right through that.
I mean, we polled with data for progress.
We asked people how they felt about Thanksgiving.
And more than 50% of people said that under President Trump's economic agenda, Thanksgiving is less affordable this year.
I wouldn't bought my Thanksgiving turkey a couple of weeks ago from a local farm.
And before anything she could say, before anything was taken care of, she goes, yeah, I'm sorry, our prices went up this year.
And I'm like, I understand.
And I mean, prices go up, but like, but when prices go up and then you're being told prices are going down, I don't understand how some folks can wrestle with trying to justify that information, especially when you support a president who's clearly saying, who's clearly lying.
And as you pointed out, Liz,
Day one, prices are coming down.
I didn't understand how he was going to do that, but I was hoping that maybe some legislation would come through.
There was a report that we were given that you did with the Century Foundation, Groundwork Collaborative did, that just simply says right here, 10% higher than last year, and that is just the truth.
The data that you have compiled shows that there is no getting around it.
The prices are going up.
Yeah, we looked at data that comes from a company called Nielsen and what they do is when you go to the grocery store and either at the self checkout line you scan or in the regular checkout line your cashier scans Every little sticker that goes through the scanner goes into this massive data set and the data set covers about half of all grocery retail sales in the country So this is a very representative set of data.
We have price data in every state in nearly every county on
know, every item in the grocery store.
And so what we did is we looked at the most popular items, you know, everybody's buying Libby's pumpkin pie filling or craft stovetop stuffing, we looked at all of these different products to see what people were actually buying.
And then we just simply compared the exact same sticker, the same UPC from this year to last year.
So they are the exact same item.
And if
items weren't available this year, new items this year, we didn't compare them.
And we find that across the board, these typical items are up by 10% across the board.
Some items are up even more than that.
We find that onions are up 56%.
Oh my goodness.
And canned cranberry sauce from Ocean Spray is up 22%.
I mean, I can't imagine having Thanksgiving without any onions in the stuffing or the turkey or a lack of canned...
cranberry sauce on the table and so while Kevin has it says well people could buy you know great value brand cranberry sauce instead of ocean spray cranberry sauce.
Sure.
And in fact, we see retailers, Target and Walmart CEOs are both telling their investors that they see low and middle income consumers switching from store brand to generic brand items or looking for more coupons and discounts.
But that is because their wages, Americans' wages are going down, adjusted for inflation.
The prices are going up by so much and the labor market has softened by so much that in fact, your paycheck just doesn't go as far.
And so they are forced to buy those store brand.
There's nothing wrong with those.
In many cases, they are the exact same item.
My uncle worked for a dairy in Memphis, Tennessee for 20 years and they bottled
five different labels of milk at the dairy, and it was all the same exact milk coming out.
But for some items, they are really different.
I don't know if anyone's ever bought generic cereal, but it's usually not as good as the brand name ones.
And if customers want to make that choice, that's totally fine.
But they shouldn't be forced to either choose items they don't want or switch from fresh produce to canned produce.
Or worse, I mean, we find that one in 10 people say they will skip Thanksgiving entirely because it's
just too expensive this year.
If you're just joining us here on Matt and Aaron here, we're speaking with Elizabeth Pancati, who is the Managing Director of Policy and Advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative.
And we're talking about a study that she was a contributor to and just the overall narrative that this year, Thanksgiving is more expensive.
And a study that she was part of, I will link in the show notes shows that at average, the price is going up 10% this year for the Thanksgiving items.
And something that, you know,
In these types of conversations, I don't like to go heavy political.
But the problem is when we talk about cost and we talk about a president who said he's going to bring prices down, you can't get away from it, especially when he says, then I'll get to it next year now.
It's in this report, it says two thirds of voters are stressed about affording holiday expenses.
Two thirds of voters, that's not all people who voted for one person.
That is a wide swath of individuals who have different political values, different economic values, but they're all
They're all connected on this that affording their groceries, affording their gifts is going to be hard and this is something else we talked about too is that it opens up the line to putting things on credit card and putting yourself in debt and that's a bigger problem too.
Yeah, I mean, I think we find that people from all parties and we can in fact even slice our data by party affiliation.
We find that 39% of Democrats are buying fewer items yet 43% of independence and 31% of Republicans are buying fewer items.
So this is not a single party thing.
We are seeing this across the board.
We also find that while 14% of people across the board are forgoing typical travel, that number actually climbs to 19%.
of independence.
And so regardless of who you voted for in last year's election or if you voted, there's no escaping higher prices this holiday season.
No, it's reality and we're all seeing it every time we walk into the store.
One article I read Liz pointed to in some instances, turkeys were actually a little less expensive, but that was because the feed was less expensive and the feed was less expensive because
It was soybeans which we are no longer exporting.
Yeah, especially in places like Wisconsin.
I mean farmers are just really getting hit by Trump's tariffs while things like soybeans might be cheaper because we are not exporting them which by the way also means farmers are not getting a paycheck for a lot of those soybeans.
Other things like fertilizer which is largely imported is much more expensive and other types of feed are up and you know other farm products Caterpillar and John Deere have both raised their prices.
I know that that hits home in Racine given how much industrial many
manufacturing goes on, those steel and aluminum tariffs are really driving up the price of heavy equipment and cutting jobs in places like Racine.
I'm looking at an article from Wisconsin Public Radio that cites Mike Semen, who's president and CEO of the Wisconsin Grocers Association.
He also said higher costs for labor, transportation, and utilities are impacting the food supply chain.
And when we talk about the price, especially of
vegetables, fresh vegetables going up.
This is all a part of decimating the workforce that works on our farms and picks that stuff.
Yeah, Trump's crackdowns on immigrant labor have really driven up the price of both fresh produce and of Meat across the board just given how many immigrant workers work in our food supply chains whether it's on farms or in meatpacking facilities So many folks are either too afraid to go to work or unfortunately have had their work visas or Either had their work visas cut or been deported
And this is something for more of a question.
I apologize if you don't have the answer right off the top of your head.
But I feel like with all of these things happening, people are getting a real sense of the chain of, not to chain of command, but like how things like labor affects prices, feed affects prices.
That affects me.
You know, not being able to get stuff shipped here because of tariffs, all of those things affects the food that goes on your table, the clothes you put on your back, the services that are available to save.
to fix your home.
Do you, in your research with your group, do you see people starting to come to light to understanding how one thing affects another, just like a butterfly effect, if you will?
Yeah, I think what you said is exactly right people have really realized I'd say over the past five years or so just given supply chain crises and the COVID-19 pandemic and and now tariffs and immigration and other issues People realize how interconnected our economy is that if you flip one switch over here, it doesn't mean that everything else is isolated If you blow a fuse in your house, it might either blow out one one electrical
switch or the entire basement, right?
And I think that's what we're seeing happen here.
In our research we do find that
people from across the political spectrum really are worried about prices and affordability.
Their economy is their number one concern.
And they say that President Trump and Republicans in Congress are not prioritizing it.
And further, we find that a lot of voters are really regretting their votes for President Trump or just saying, I really thought he was going to come in and lower prices and we do not see him delivering.
And I think across the board, you know, President Trump is currently at his
lowest approval rating on the economy, even compared to the entire first
term.
sentiment you're talking about right now is being discussed a lot with the first year coming up.
And people saying, I did this for the economy.
I wanted lower prices.
And we're going to talk more about this on the other side of the break.
But we are talking to Liz Pancati, who is the Managing Director of Policy and Advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative.
So stick around.
We will be right back.
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Good morning.
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on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
Our guest is Liz Pancotti.
She's the managing director of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative.
We are talking about Thanksgiving prices and prices in general.
Just a couple of side notes here.
511wi.gov is that...
Website that will show you where all the accidents are across the state, and I have been checking this across the morning.
We do have some accidents scattered around Wisconsin, but it looks like it really starts getting hairy when you're on 94 north of Wisconsin Dells.
Visibility is bad.
We do have a blizzard warning for parts of Ashland so far northern Wisconsin.
So please just be careful with that.
And now we have some power outages we're dealing
with.
We do have power outages around the state.
Wisconsin, I see here about 12,300.
174 people are without power, mainly going up through the southeastern area of Wisconsin.
I know my, my power is out in Kenosha right now.
So yeah, just be aware, be aware, be safe.
And they're working on it right now, according to the website.
They're working on
it.
Of course they are.
But
if you have an elderly neighbor or something like that,
and this goes
on for a while, you may want to go check on them.
Exactly.
All right.
We're going to get back to Liz Pancati, our guest here.
Liz, we had a couple of texts come in during the break.
Jim from Campbell's Port says, I am a store brand rep.
You have to price compare private label versus national brand.
Also, don't forget there's a difference between store brand and second tier lines, which are considered generic.
I didn't even know that was a thing.
We can see all of that in our data set.
So we even like for produce, for example, in some parts of the country, Chiquita bananas are more popular and in other parts of the country, Del Monte bananas are more popular.
It just depends on where things come from.
Dairy is another one where they're, you know, Borden is popular in some places.
There's also a great value brand at Walmart and different local brands.
So we're able to look across the country at both the kind of product category.
So just all whole milk and
at specific products.
So where there's a lot of variation, especially for things like produce, we can kind of transcend the brand level analysis.
And then where, you know, things like green giant canned green beans are very popular.
And so we were able to look at specific brands when they are driving the greatest share of sales.
I think the something I want to go back to what you mentioned in the previous segment was the fact that, you know, we talk about it a lot, but people I have to imagine, along with
the chain of command of how are, how the processes affect our food prices and affect the things we can access.
The fact that wages have stagnated or gone down to when adjusted for inflation, that's also a huge problem when people are just trying to buy, trying to buy canned cranberry and they are like, well, we'll skip that this year because they can't afford it because their job that, you know, and then we're not talking about poor only.
We're talking about poor working, poor working class, blue color, middle class people is all affected by the fact that wages are not.
Keeping up with what's going on with prices
Yeah, that's exactly right.
I mean we find that most Americans feel like their paychecks are just not keeping up In in times of high inflation I mean the basic essentials things like housing groceries and utility bills are all up by 30% over the past five years I don't know very many people who got a 30%
paycheck increase over the past 30
years?
Maybe if you're a CEO, Liz, I bet some of those guys got a 30% raise.
I think this is the issue.
And it's not just, you know, it's hard.
You said you bought your turkey from a local farm.
It's hard to look at our local producers, especially in a state like Wisconsin, and say, you shouldn't raise your prices.
And for most of these people, they're actually taking home a lot less than they were five years ago, even in light of 30% price increases or more.
And these big, especially in agriculture, big conglomerate corporations are making out bandits while farmers and ranchers are getting squeezed.
And everyday Americans, whether you're blue collar or even upper middle class, it is really difficult to afford just the biggest sick essentials, much less the little
like the marshmallows for the top of your sweet potatoes.
You might skip this year.
And you mentioned these big conglomerates.
We just had a meat processing plant close, I believe, in Kentucky.
And that, from my understanding, is one of the major problems with our beef producers and why beef is so high is because we have four companies that control all the beef processing in this country.
And one of them is a Brazilian company.
That's exactly right.
I mean in Nebraska just literally last week Tyson announced will be closing a factory that employs nearly 3,000 people just ahead of the holidays and yet the top five executives at Tyson's got over 10 million dollars in bonuses Wait a
minute.
What did they what?
When did this start happening?
When did CEO start getting bonuses in light of
when a mass
firing?
Yeah, it's I mean
We don't have time to talk about it right now, but I would love to talk to you about this again, that, you know, working for someone like Bernie Sanders and with the election of Zoran Mamdani in New York, I'm wondering how many Americans are starting to open their eyes and accept new ideas on how we need to lead and create laws that actually benefit the people of this country and make it so that we can afford Thanksgiving.
I
think that's a pretty common sense thing that is felt across all political parties right now.
Liz Pancotti is the Managing Director of Policy and Advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative.
Thank you so very much for your time, Liz.
It's been a really, really interesting conversation.
Appreciate it.
Thanks so much for having me.
Happy Thanksgiving.
You as
well.
Stay tuned.
We have news coming up next.
And then when we return, teens and technology.
We're going to talk about teens and technology and adults.
And technology, while we are on the subject with Dr. Gabriel Velez, is going to be joining us, so stay with us.
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