Gasoline prices are creeping up -- about 24 cents a gallon higher than last month -- but down about $1.55 from a year ago. But if the recent hike in gasoline prices means you decide to forgo that Memorial Day weekend getaway for a barbecue at home, hold on to your wallet: prices for ingredients of a traditional barbecue -- with main courses of hamburgers and chicken -- are up more than 6% from a year ago, outpacing the inflation rate for all food and a complete flip from the 40.2% drop in the cost of a gallon of gasoline.

The cost of the simple stay-at-home barbecue reflects the arithmetic based on prices tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The price bump is slightly less than the increase from 2007 to 2008, when the cost of the barbecue's fixings rose more than 7%.

The cost of the FOX Business Barbecue rose faster than food inflation in the last year. The cost of food overall is up about 3.3% from April 2008 to April 2009, according to the BLS data.

The overall cost of the barbecue was driven up primarily by the increase in the cost of the potato chips, up 20.5% in the last year, and cookies, which rose 12.8%. That potato salad will cost more too: the price of a pound of potatoes is up 13.6%. The good news is the basic barbecue fare, hamburgers, will cost a little less: the price of a pound of ground beef dropped 3.1% from April 2008 to April 2009. The fixings though might ruin your appetite.

Here’s the detail for some of the items on the menu for our FOX Memorial Day Barbecue, comparing costs this year and last year.
Ground beef: down 3.1%
American cheese: down 2.6%
Hamburger buns: up 1.7%
Soda: up 2.3%
Ice cream: up 3.9%
Beer: up 6.2%
Chicken: up 10.2%
Chocolate chip cookies: up 12.8%
Potatoes: up 13.6%
Potato chips: up 20.5%

In the same period, average hourly earnings, also computed and tracked by the BLS, rose just 3.2%, from $17.94 to $18.51, which means it took the average wage earner about two minutes longer this year to earn the cost of the backyard feast than it did last year. The time increase was about the same as it was from 2007 to 2008.

The price of a gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline, according to the Department of Energy, dropped to $2.06 in April from $3.51 one year ago. The price in May though has jumped to about $2.30, which may affect travel plans.

To a large extent, the change in food prices reflects grain prices but that could be an oversimplification. Grain prices are determined as much by underlying costs as by traditional supply and demand dynamics.

According to the most recent AgLetter produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the increase in the value of farmland slowed in the last year as credit conditions tightened, adding to the costs of farming.

“Agricultural price declines,” according to Chicago Fed economist David Oppedahl, “reduced expected revenues for crops and have been a dominant factor in the slowing of both cash rental rates and farmland values.”

Corn and soybean prices, Oppedahl wrote, “have fallen below the levels of a year ago, though they have remained at levels that farmers would have considered outstanding prior to 2008.” He said the price of a bushel of corn dropped 8.5% to $4.03 per bushel for corn while the price of a bushel of soybeans plunged 13% to $9.55.

“Input costs have fallen as well,” Oppedahl wrote, “but respondents commented that farm incomes were unlikely to be above break-even levels for 2009.”

Mark Lieberman is the senior economist for the Fox Business Network. Prior to joining FOX, he served as first vice president and manager of economic analysis and research at Washington Mutual in New York. Before that, he served as senior vice president at Dime Savings Bank of New York (which was later acquired by Washington Mutual), where he specialized in credit and risk management. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the New York Association for Business Economics. He has a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.