Everyone in America has felt the effects of inflation over the past five years. Inflation has caused prices to rise out of sync with wages, causing financial hardship for many. Inflation has hit markets for large items like houses and cars and essentials like gas and groceries.
Anyone who paid attention during the 2024 election cycle knows, however, that one specific grocery item was at the forefront of both candidates platforms: eggs.
However, the political fascination with eggs has continued past the election. When President Trump first took office in January, the price of eggs continued to rise.
This led to Democrats calling out Trump for failing on his campaign promise to lower the price of eggs, and Republicans, in turn, calling out Democrats for having unreasonable expectations of how fast economic changes happen. Egg prices in the end of March have now dropped for the first time since Trump took office.
Can Trump be blamed for the increase in egg costs during January and February? Can he be credited for lowering the price of eggs in March?
The short answer to these questions is “not really.” While Trump’s economic changes have had an effect on all markets, bird flu is the one factor that far outstrips inflation in importance.
The bird flu that hit a little over one year ago, in March 2024, caused two important problems for consumers.
Firstly, the rising cost of eggs, which is what has been the most discussed of the two, however, the other half is an important piece of the puzzle. The bird flu has also made eggs much harder to find in stores.
Everyone knows that one of the most basic components of economics is supply and demand, and that is largely what is at issue here. Demand for eggs remains high, but birds are dying either from the disease, or from being euthanized after contact with other infected birds, which means that supply has drastically lowered.
It is important to note that the rising cost of eggs is not because low supply has led sellers to charge more out of greed.
However, with so many birds dying, and eggs not being sold, prices have to rise to make up for the massive financial losses farmers are experiencing with the death of their chickens. Many farmers could be at risk of going bankrupt with their loss of their main assets.
The bird flu has also made complications for industrial farms. The bird flu can be carried by humans, which means workers need to shower before entering and leaving work.
Workers are now having to deal not only with their regular tasks, but also with tracking birds sickness, cleaning up the newly-increased amount of dead birds and having to euthanize many others. This has caused a lot more stress among those in the industrial egg workforce.
On a somewhat lighter note, to those worried about contracting bird flu themselves, it is incredibly rare to contract, and even rarer for the disease to be deadly if it is contracted.
In fact, since the current strain entered the United States, only one person has died. The current strain of bird flu has not been spread through person-to-person contact according to the CDC. This means that the chance human health will be affected is negligible.
