President Trump, as he announced sweeping tariffs, batted away “very tired predictions” from critics of his economic agenda by citing a large decline in the price of eggs.
“The price of eggs dropped now 59 percent, and they’re going down more and the availability is fantastic,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday.
The wholesale price of eggs has indeed fallen by more than half since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, but that drastic decline is not yet reflected in the retail price, which consumers pay at the grocery store.
According to the Agriculture Department’s weekly data release, the national wholesale average has fallen from $6.55 a dozen on Jan. 24 to $3 on March 28, a 54 percent decline. But the agency, in its latest release, noted that it could take up to three weeks for retail prices to catch up to wholesale prices and that “consumers are only now starting to see shelf prices slowly decline.”
The average price of a dozen eggs in grocery stores was $5.90 in February, the month with the latest available data, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was almost a dollar more than the average in January.
The wholesale prices of eggs remains much higher now than at this point at the end of March 2024, when the national average was $1.70 a dozen.
The Agriculture Department predicted in its latest food price outlook that egg prices will increase by 57.6 percent in 2025 compared with the previous year.