Revisit Egg Prices
Okay, I am going to revisit the egg prices that I first started tracking maybe a month ago. I have also tracked milk prices and gas prices. I was going to also add housing prices but upon graphing it, I see that housing appears to have a constant upward motion, maybe with the exception of the Great Recession period.
At the time, egg prices were skyrocketing and were the main topic of conversation during the election. Well, maybe the topic of groceries was the main topic. But eggs were always in there.
Start with milk prices
Here’s the overview of milk prices since 1995. The dark shaded area was Trump’s administration. Milk rose during Trump’s era but then stabilized during Biden’s administration. These data points on the charts are annual averages, not monthly averages.
Here’s a smaller scale of trending milk prices since last year (2024). This chart shows monthly averages and is a bit easier to see the trends.
As you can see in the monthly scale, milk had been trending up since May 2024, but peaked in November 2024 and has gone down since. Is that due to the new regime? It may be too soon to tell.
Economists often say that Presidents really can’t do anything about inflation. That kind of makes sense. But it does looks encouraging.
Now let’s revisit egg prices
Egg prices were the ones that people talked about the most, so I do want to revisit egg prices to see what the fuss was all about.
The dark shaded area is the era of Trump’s first administration. You can see that egg prices dipped during his administration and then started to skyrocket during Biden’s administration.
Is the egg inflation Biden’s fault? Well, economists would say Presidents can’t do anything about inflation.
Again, this chart is showing annual averages, not monthly.
This chart is showing a relentless increase in prices with a temporary dip during the month of October.
The egg prices do jive with the inflation story we’ve been hearing during the last election cycle.
But do Presidents play a role in prices?
Current cause of egg prices
While people want to point the fingers at Biden or Trump, another group of people are saying it’s bird flu. If I understand correctly, farmers are required to cull their flock of chickens if bird flu is found in their flock.
So, if farmers are culling their chickens, then shouldn’t chicken meat also be incurring inflationary price increases? I need to check that out.
So, it’s neither Biden or Trump that is causing the extreme price increases of eggs.
Let’s look at gas
Gas prices appear to be stabilizing at the moment after doing a surge during the second half of the Trump administration.
While a closer inspection indicates a slight increase, it is too soon to determine.
I will say it is only eggs that is showing inflationary increases of price.
But I will also say, prices are not really going down either.
It’s too soon to tell.
It really is too soon to make an assessment on the direction of prices. I don’t believe we have yet implemented the full deportation policy yet, meaning I don’t think ICE has had a chance to deport all of the agricultural workers. That will take time.
Also, tariffs have been postponed for one month.
We’re not out of the woods yet. I think I will revisit egg prices during the middle of the year to see if the policies are making an adverse impact.
BTW, he did say, after the election, that it will be difficult to decrease prices, maybe even almost impossible. Again, Presidents really don’t have the power to affect prices.
When we have widespread price decreases, we are in deflation mode and typically, economists do not regard that as a good thing. Deflation is regarded as a harbinger of a recession, or worse, a depression.
Anyway, I will come back maybe in the middle of the year.
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