Egg prices vs. Consumer Price Index since 1980
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Egg prices vs. Consumer Price Index since 1980
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Re: Egg prices vs. Consumer Price Index since 1980
#2Looks like actual prices are trending back to the index. There was a big spike induced by the culling of millions of birds a couple of years back.
Re: Egg prices vs. Consumer Price Index since 1980
#3Looks like actual prices are trending back to the index. There was a big spike induced by the culling of millions of birds a couple of years back.
166 million chickens were culled earlier this year [1]
[1] https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-02-26/poultry...
Re: Egg prices vs. Consumer Price Index since 1980
#4I appreciate this graph as a (very partial) rejoinder to the inflation truthers.
I could believe that there is some modest measurement error in how we calculate inflation, but, picking relatively arbitrary dates that I happen to remember, the idea that 2000-2025 inflation was double the reported numbers doesn't pass the sniff test.
Re: Egg prices vs. Consumer Price Index since 1980
#5Looks like actual prices are trending back to the index. There was a big spike induced by the culling of millions of birds a couple of years back.
Yes. It is a shame both sides explored this politically in the most superficial manner.
Those cullings (there was also a more recent one), for sanitary reasons, should have sparked a higher level debate on food security viz novel epidemic threats.
But, politics in the US are completely dominated by lawyers, everything is about rhetorics and scoring talking points. But problems like that require an engineering mindset.
Re: Egg prices vs. Consumer Price Index since 1980
#6$6.20 for a dozen eggs still sounds like a good deal. Think about the amount of work to get those onto a refrigerated shelf in the supermarket. It's amazing.
Re: Egg prices vs. Consumer Price Index since 1980
#7Out of all thousands of products, goods and services you will find plenty that track the official number "fairly well" out of of pure chance.
I fail to see any significance of this one chart.
Re: Egg prices vs. Consumer Price Index since 1980
#8$6.20 for a dozen eggs still sounds like a good deal. Think about the amount of work to get those onto a refrigerated shelf in the supermarket. It's amazing.
> refrigerated shelf in the supermarket
Wow, today I learned that in some countries, the supermarkets keep their eggs in the refrigerator! Apparently there is a protective coat on eggs that sometimes gets washed away, and when it is, you need to store the egg in a cold environment otherwise bacteria gets in. In other places, eggs aren't washed (that much at least) so the protective coat is still there, so we store our eggs on normal room temperature shelves.
Re: Egg prices vs. Consumer Price Index since 1980
#9As someone who keeps backyard chickens and recently got a new flock, I will say anecdotally this spike was observed even in livestock.
In March 2025, I tried to order baby chicks to replace some of my aging flock. Not only was every hatchery sold out, but going in person to farm stores meant waiting in lines on the days shipments were received and dealing with rationing (3 chicks per person, etc).
I opted to order chicks for the fall instead of doing a normal spring brooding and luckily the weather cooperated, but as is normal I ordered some extra chicks as padding. The extras I have now been able to sell locally at a premium, covering my entire cost.
Let me just add I don't think backyard eggs are cheaper, even at the height of price spike, because when externalities like feed and enclosure are calculated the resulting product won't have the economies of scale. But I think many people decided they wanted a steady supply after eggs became hard to come by. I personally keep chickens for reasons besides eggs but I am still happy that more folks are keeping chickens.