Watch Out for 70% Egg Price Inflation as Price Surges Could Bite

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 8:37AM EST · Published Jan 11, 8:23AM EST

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Egg prices are up 70% in the past year.
This shows what shortages can do to the costs of goods and services.

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Watch Out for 70% Egg Price Inflation as Price Surges Could Bite — © Tevarak / iStock via Getty Images

The price of a dozen large white eggs was $2.14 last year. The figure has risen to $3.65 in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The increase is 70%. The reason is a shortage. Low supply causes shortages. The egg prices are driven by bird flu and the death of hundreds of thousands of birds. A new broader wave of inflation could be caused by tariffs. The relationship between eggs and wide inflation is closer than one might think.

According to The Washington Post, avian flu killed 40 million egg-laying chickens last year. Tariffs could now knock out or lower the supply of a range of goods and services that runs from energy to cars. A series of shortages drove the consumer price index up 9.1% year over year in June 2022. Eggs were on that list, along with meat, poultry, and fish. The food group rose 11.7% year over year. The egg shortage started in January 2022.

Tariffs could cause a series of shortages not unlike the chicken problem. The CPI gas price index rose 59.9% in June 2022. Supply was tight because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If the Trump administration puts 25% tariffs on Canada, oil prices would rocket higher again. Canada is the largest supplier of heavy crude to the United States. Fuel oil prices and gas prices in the United States would cripple driving and home heating.

Canada also exports cars to the United States. In June 2022, the price of new cars rose 11.4%. The increase had been much higher earlier in the year and 2021 because of supply chain challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. There could be tariffs on cars imported from Mexico.

Other large imports from Mexico include consumer electronics, beer, plastics, and gems.

The effect of mid-2022 inflation in the United States was a deep anxiety about a recession. The Federal Reserve helped lower the potential of that disaster with rate cuts. Until recently, most experts believed that the Fed would continue cutting. However, there is modest evidence of inflation, particularly driven by a healthy job market. What happens to the anticipated cuts next year? If tariffs come, the Fed faces a new set of challenges.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.