America’s present spike in egg costs has rapidly develop into one of many central public coverage problems with early 2025. However whereas the emphasis in a lot of the media and amongst policymakers has centered on the epidemiology patterns of the avian flu, the federal government itself additionally bears a lot of the duty for our present nationwide egg panic.
The federal authorities is now forecasting that egg costs will rise by 41 p.c this 12 months—greater than double the federal government’s prior predicted annual enhance that was put out simply final month—and tales abound of outrageously priced eggs in grocery shops throughout America. Eggs in California are approaching $10 a dozen, whereas the nationwide common is just below $5 a dozen.
In uncooked numerical phrases, eggs price 53 p.c extra at present than they did right now final 12 months. But it surely’s vital to additionally conceptualize what which means on the bottom: A family-owned café in Florida is reportedly spending $1,500 every week simply on eggs—a threefold enhance from final 12 months—whereas chains resembling Denny’s and Waffle Home have began implementing a surcharge for dishes made with eggs.
Most tales on hovering egg costs have targeting the unfold of the chook flu since 2022 and whether or not any president can affect the worth of eggs. Largely neglected is the impression authorities laws are having on the present value spike—specifically, state-based “cage-free” legal guidelines that ban the sale of any eggs inside state boundaries that aren’t laid by cage-free hens.
Since 2018, California, Massachusetts, and near a dozen different states have adopted cage-free legal guidelines. Banning caged eggs is a traditional instance of a supposedly altruistic authorities coverage leading to detrimental unintended penalties.
On condition that over 60 p.c of the nation’s eggs are nonetheless laid by caged hens, residents in these cage-free states are successfully minimize off from two-thirds of America’s egg provide. Predictably, in-state egg producers in these cage-free states have supported the legal guidelines, on condition that they’re tantamount to sidelining the overwhelming majority of out-of-state egg-producing competitors, which in flip can enable the in-state farms to dominate native egg markets.
Whereas cage-free mandates are clearly not the only purpose egg costs are skyrocketing, their impression cannot be completely dismissed. In Royal Oak, Michigan—a cage-free mandate state—a dozen eggs went for $6.29 this previous January. Compared, simply over the border in Toledo, Ohio, which has no such cage-free regulation, eggs could possibly be discovered for beneath $4 a dozen.
In Nevada—additionally a cage-free mandate state—lawmakers have been so involved concerning the cage ban’s impression on egg costs that they handed an modification to their cage-free regulation that enables for its non permanent suspension for 120 days within the occasion of an emergency. A research printed within the American Journal of Agricultural Economics estimated that California’s cage-free regulation would end in annual welfare losses of $72 million for Golden State households and losses of as much as 18 p.c of income for the egg trade.
Cage-free legal guidelines could possibly be considered as justifiable in the event that they created discernibly extra humane habitats for the chickens. However as anybody who has considered photos of a “cage-free farm” can attest, they typically encompass hordes of chickens jammed inside a big area, versus a caged farm, which consists of hordes of chickens every jammed in small particular person areas. Is one truly any higher than the opposite? For years, phrases like “free-range” and “cage-free” have been lauded as advances in humane farming, when in actuality, few, if any, eggs with these designations contain chickens whimsically tromping by idyllic grass meadows, pecking at free-range bugs.
One potential growth price watching is Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins’ latest announcement that the Division of Agriculture beneath the Trump administration plans to look at “one of the simplest ways to guard farmers from overly prescriptive state legal guidelines” like California’s cage-free regulation. These state-level legal guidelines may doubtlessly be inclined to constitutional challenges on “dormant commerce clause” grounds, beneath the speculation that these protectionist guidelines unduly burden interstate commerce. Nevertheless, a latest related case involving a protectionist pork-production regulation was barely upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court docket in a carefully divided and closely fragmented resolution.
There isn’t any doubt that the chook flu is spiking egg costs. However, as ever, the federal government’s arms are removed from clear on this scrambled mess.
