Here’s Why Your Breakfast Just Got Way More Expensive
You’re going to have to start shelling out a lot more for your eggs.
U.S. farmers in 20 states have killed more than 40 million chickens and turkeys since December, including about a third of the commercial, egg-laying birds in Iowa, as the United States experiences its biggest-ever bird flu outbreak.
The diminishing poultry population has led to an egg supply crunch, pushing prices some 85 percent higher, according to The Wall Street Journal. Economists say prices could spike another 20 to 30 percent.
The outbreak comes just as eggs are returning to favor with consumers after years of fighting perceptions that they’re unhealthy. In 2013, Americans consumers munched on more than 250 eggs per capita, the highest rate in six years.
Related: Minnesotans in contact with avian flu birds getting preventive drugs
Last year, the U.S. poultry industry produced nearly 100 billion eggs. USDA associate deputy administrator Jack Shere told the Associated Press that the avian flu could cost the U.S. taxpayers about $400 million this year.
Big Food companies are already considering changes to their menus and their pricing following the shortage. McDonald’s, Panera Bread, and General Mills, The New York Times reports.
The last serious avian flu outbreak in the United States occurred in 1983 and led to the killing of 17 million chickens, turkey, and guinea fowl in Pennsylvania and Virginia. While avian flu spread to humans in Asia in 2003, the Centers for Disease Control considers the risk to people from the current strain to be low.
Will Trump's Tax Cuts Really Happen? Economists Are Surprisingly Optimistic
Despite all the thorny questions swirling around President Trump's nascent tax reform plan, 29 of 38 economists surveyed by Bloomberg in a monthly poll said they expect Congress to cut taxes by November of next year.
The hitch: The economists don’t expect the cuts will help the economy much. The median projection of a larger group of 71 economists is for 2018 growth of 2.3 percent, up only slightly from 2.1 percent this year — and by 2019, the economists see growth slipping back to 2 percent.
