{"id":8124,"date":"2025-05-01T03:38:03","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T03:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=8124"},"modified":"2025-05-01T03:38:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T03:38:05","slug":"trump-says-egg-prices-are-falling-some-experts-say-the-claim-is-misleading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=8124","title":{"rendered":"Trump says egg prices are falling. Some experts say the claim is misleading."},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Donald Trump this week disputed criticism over high egg prices<\/a> in an exclusive interview<\/a> with ABC News, faulting his predecessor for the price hike and claiming what he described as a recent decline in egg prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou remember the big thing with eggs? They hit me the first week, \u2018Eggs, eggs, eggs,\u2019 like it was my fault. I said, \u2018I didn’t cause this problem. This problem was caused by [Joe] Biden,\u2019\u201d Trump told<\/a> ABC News\u2019 Terry Moran.<\/p>\n

\u201cEgg prices are down,\u201d Trump later added.<\/p>\n

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Eggs are displayed on a grocery store shelf, April 11, 2025, in San Anselmo, Calif.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The remarks echoed claims made repeatedly by Trump since he took office, but his assessment of egg prices is potentially misleading, some food economists told ABC News.<\/p>\n

Retail egg prices, or the prices paid by shoppers, have climbed over the early months of Trump\u2019s term, meaning household budgets have been slammed by worsening egg costs, the economists said.<\/p>\n

By contrast, wholesale egg prices — the amount grocers pay to suppliers — have dropped significantly since Trump took office, though Trump appeared to overstate the amount of decline during the ABC News interview.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear when and to what extent that decline in wholesale egg prices will translate into relief for consumers, economists added.<\/p>\n

\u201cEgg prices have been increasing at the retail level and that\u2019s really important when assessing the claim President Trump made yesterday,\u201d said David Ortega, a food economist at Michigan State University.<\/p>\n

Parke Wilde, a food economist at Tufts University, added: “I encourage people who are reading the news about food prices to focus on consumer prices, not wholesale prices, because that\u2019s what real consumers care about.”<\/p>\n

Economists also largely rejected the attribution of blame for egg prices to any president, whether former President Joe Biden or Trump, saying a president exerts minimal influence over day-to-day egg costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president has little or no control over egg prices,\u201d Ortega said. \u201cAny changes, whether egg prices go up or down, have almost nothing to do with what the president or any other policymaker is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Trump\u2019s claim that eggs prices are falling, the price paid by shoppers has increased significantly since he took office, food economists said.<\/p>\n

The average retail price of a dozen eggs climbed from $4.95 in January to $6.22 in March, the most recent month for which data is available. That change in price amounted to a 25% spike, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a> data shows.<\/p>\n

In recent years, bird flu — also known as avian flu — has decimated the egg supply while demand has persisted, lifting prices higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven as egg prices have exploded over the last year or two, we\u2019ve actually seen really strong demand for eggs,\u201d Trey Malone, a food economist at Purdue University, told ABC News.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is it\u2019s really hard to substitute away from eggs. I can\u2019t make cookies without eggs if I want to make grandma\u2019s recipe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent months, however, the rise in retail egg prices has coincided with a drop in wholesale prices. That decline largely owes to an easing of the avian flu outbreak, food economists told ABC News.<\/p>\n

When Trump refers to a drop in egg prices, he may be referring to the decline in wholesale prices. In a memo on Tuesday listing economic accomplishments, the White House highlighted the drop in wholesale egg prices while acknowledging that retail prices may still be elevated for some consumers.<\/p>\n

“Most consumers have seen relief in prices on the shelf, but all consumers should see it within the next month or two,” the White House said.<\/p>\n

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ABC News Exclusive: President Donald J. Trump sits down with Anchor and Senior National Correspondent Terry Moran, April, 29, 2025 as Trump marks his first 100 days in office.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

ABC News<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Speaking with ABC News on Tuesday, Trump said: \u201cEggs are down 87% since I got involved.”<\/p>\n

Trump has provided different figures for the size of the drop in egg prices. On April 17, he said prices had fallen 92%, while on April 4 he said egg prices had dropped 87%.<\/p>\n

Each of those figures overstates the drop in wholesale egg prices, according to data from the USDA.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 21, the day after Trump took office, the average wholesale price of a dozen eggs stood at $6.55; as of April 30, that price had dropped to $3.25, a Trading Economics<\/a> analysis of USDA data shows. That change in price amounts to a roughly 50% decline.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not accurate to say egg prices have decreased by 87%,\u201d Ortega said. \u201cWholesale egg prices are down but they\u2019re not down by that much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decline in wholesale egg prices may result in a drop in the prices paid by consumers, but the timing and extent of the relief remain unclear, food economists said.<\/p>\n

The lag owes in part to the nature of contracts between businesses and egg suppliers, which often lock in prices for weeks, experts said. Grocers may also be reluctant to slash egg prices, some experts added, since customers have largely kept up egg purchases at higher prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor as much people talk about increasing egg prices, they\u2019re still buying eggs,\u201d Malone said.<\/p>\n

ABC News’ Emily Chang contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump this week disputed criticism over high egg prices in an exclusive interview with ABC News, faulting his predecessor for the price hike and claiming what he described as a recent decline in egg prices. \u201cYou remember the big thing with eggs? They hit me the first week, \u2018Eggs, eggs, eggs,\u2019 like it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8126,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8124\/revisions\/8126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}