Cracking the Egg on Inflation

AMAC Exclusive – By Seamus Brennan

“Inflation” may have been the political word of the year in 2022, and things don’t look to be getting much better in 2023. But as politicians and pundits continue to refer endlessly to inflation in abstract terms and numbers, it can be helpful to view the phenomenon in concrete terms to understand the daily impact it has had on the lives of ordinary Americans. There is perhaps no better way to do so than to view the inflation crisis through the soaring price of a quintessential American commodity: eggs.

Eggs have long been a staple of the American diet. Consumption of eggs dates back to the early days of our nation’s history: according to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, “Early colonists brought egg-laying chickens with them from Europe, and in the mid-1800s chickens began to be bred specifically for their eggs.” Eventually, “each region developed their own signature egg dishes.” As of 2014, the average American consumed 258 eggs per year.

As of late, however, eggs have increasingly gone from a cheap protein source to an expensive luxury. In October 2022, a dozen large Grade A eggs cost a whopping $3.42—up 87.8 percent from October 2021 and up 110.6 percent, or $2.14, from October 2019.

Data from November and December show the price of eggs is still rising. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Wholesale prices of Midwest large eggs hit a record $5.36 a dozen in December,” while “retail egg prices have increased more than any other supermarket item [in 2022], climbing more than 30% from January to early December compared with the same period a year earlier.”

Economists attribute the surge in egg prices partially to the spread of bird flu, which has affected more than 50 million birds this year.

The same economists insist, however, that the Biden administration’s inflation-inducing economic policies and disruption of American supply chains has contributed significantly to the price increases. “In the case of eggs, you have rapidly increasing market prices of corn or whatever it is that they eat, and that drives up the cost of feeding the chicken, which drives up the price of eggs, which drives up prices for American consumers,” said economist Isabella Weber. High gas prices and labor shortages have also contributed to the spike in egg prices, making it more expensive to purchase eggs from farms and get them into consumers’ hands.

The story of the soaring price of eggs is a proxy for inflation itself. And if the Biden administration’s response to the inflation crisis (which has been defined by exorbitant spending bills and reckless fiscal policy) is any indication, prices—including egg prices—are not coming down anytime soon.

Though the Biden White House will point to its ill-advised policies like the American Rescue Plan and the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” as answers to the inflation crisis, while also shifting blame to “supply chain problems” and other factors supposedly outside their control, most experts predict that Biden’s economic policies are the biggest driving force behind inflation and are set to make the crisis worse, not better. The Penn Wharton Budget Model found that the “Inflation Reduction Act” will actually “increase inflation until 2024.” Furthermore, the bill will, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, increase the national debt and add $285 billion to the deficit within the next 10 years—thus even further aggravating inflationary concerns.

According to Fox Business, Christmas dinner grocery baskets this year were “estimated to cost an average of $60.29”—16.4 percent higher than last year. And now, as Americans start the new year, economists predict that “the worst is yet to come”—and that “2023 will feel like a recession.”

Every time Americans head to the grocery store and notice abnormally high prices for something as central to everyday life as a carton of eggs, they should be instantly reminded of the Biden administration’s destructive economic policies and deliberate infliction of the worst economic crisis in decades onto the American family. Because as it turns out, inflation is not a particularly difficult problem to solve—and unfortunately, until the American people receive a much-needed change in leadership, high prices are here to stay.