This is the first installment in a multi-part series.

Bouncing down a grocery aisle in Iowa City’s Fareway  on the east side of town, Kris Dougherty’s daughter dragged her family’s shopping cart over to the eggs.

Wedging her cart against the open air cooler, she tilted her head back to survey her options, the enticing packaging practically beaming in the cooler’s fluorescents.

She snagged a bright blue carton, lifted it in the air, and called back to her dad.

“Can we get two?” she asked her dad, holding up a carton of eggs priced $6.99 for the dozen.

“No,” Kris Dougherty said. “Just the one.”

The Dougherty family buys a dozen eggs about once a week, he said, and the increasing cost of eggs hasn’t led to them making major budget adjustments. They have, however, had to cut back on some things.

“It’s ridiculous now,” he said, referring to the soaring prices of eggs.

The average price of a dozen large, Grade A eggs settled at $2.52 in January 2024 but skyrocketed to $4.95 a year later, according to the most recent data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Dougherty isn’t alone in his frustrations. Confronted with rising egg prices, many Americans are adjusting grocery budgets to keep the kitchen staple in their shopping carts, including University of Iowa student Henry Kautz.

“It’s definitely just going to be something that I’ll look at in my budget every month and sigh about where the money is going,” the second-year mechanical engineering student said.

The cost of a carton has become a highly politicized issue and is one discussed far beyond Iowa City. Legislators and the president use the familiar item as a major talking point — especially when addressing the U.S. economy — causing eggs to roll into political rhetoric.

Republicans pushed the issue as a sign of former President Joe Biden’s failings, while Democrats now counter Trump is failing to deliver on his promises.

Kautz said the “gamesmanship” between the two political parties prevents them from talking about legitimate solutions to issues that impact the everyday working person.

“It just shows a complete lack of seriousness to actually add nuance or address issues that are very real and affecting common people in a way that has any merit,” he said. “It just turns into whenever one party is not in control, they’re not letting the crisis go to waste, right? They’re using that as a cudgel to cast blame on whoever’s in charge.”

When Biden was in office, critics used egg prices as a complaint about runaway inflation. When President Donald Trump took office, his critics also pointed to the cost as a sign of him failing to address the economy.

Arguments made by either political party blur lines and politicize eggs, economic and political experts at two Iowa regent universities say, and the correlation between the grocery staple and the U.S. economy is due to the product’s visibility and demand in the average American household.

Despite rising prices being primarily caused by bird flu, which has forced farmers around the country to cull over 166 million birds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, experts say the cost of eggs remains a political issue.

In his bid for a second term, President Donald Trump campaigned heavily on the economy, specifically soaring grocery store prices, and promised to lower costs on day one of his presidency.

Republicans capitalized on the issue, including U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, who launched an ad in September underscoring the increasing cost of groceries, using eggs as the first example, and linking the rising costs to liberal policies.

Voters whose primary concern was the economy largely voted for Trump and Republican candidates at the polls in November. Experts say dissatisfaction with the economy ushered a Republican swing nationwide.

Over a month into Trump’s second term and a Republican supermajority, Democrats have flipped the script, UI Political Science Professor Tim Hagle said.

“Everybody buys eggs, and it’s an easy thing for the Democrats to point to, to say, ‘Look, Trump is failing at this,’” he said. “They want to find something to basically tag on him, and say, ‘Look, he’s not doing what he promised, so don’t support him.’”

Hagle said Democrats have used eggs as an indicator of how the economy is doing because the economy is a winning issue, as seen in the results of the 2024 election.

The rising prices, Hagle said, are more heavily linked to the bird flu creating supply issues rather than the economy and inflation.

Rattled by a bird flu outbreak, the egg market has been turbulent since 2022. The issue has only worsened in recent months. From November to December, the number of birds infected by the disease increased by more than 11 million and by nearly 5 million from December to January, according to data from the USDA.

“While the bird flu is not Trump’s fault, the rising prices are his problem politically,” Hagle said.

Eggonomics: the economy behind egg prices

Egg prices rose more than 15 percent from December to January, jumping to the largest increase in 10 years. The jump accounted for two-thirds of the total food increase, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Between January 2024 and January 2025, egg prices rose by 53 percent, according to data from the USDA. The department predicts egg prices will increase more than 41 percent in 2025.

These skyrocketing prices can be attributed to three rather simple factors, according to UI economics professor Anne Villamil: bird flu, potential price gouging, and overall inflation and supply chain disruptions.

Villamil said while the process of killing millions of egg-laying chickens is the best way to prevent the spread of the highly pathogenic disease, it created a negative supply stock.

“From the point of view of economics, when you decrease the supply of anything, the price is going to go up,” Villamil said. “So, in that sense, it’s a very clear economic phenomenon.”

Price gouging may not be as likely as a culprit for rising prices, Villamil said, yet Democrats are calling for an investigation into pricing practices in the industry.

The Department of Justice opened an investigation on price gouging by major egg companies on March 7. The investigation targets large-scale producers, such as Cal-Maine Foods based in California and Rose Acre Farms based in Indiana. Cal-Maine is the largest producer and marketer of eggs in the U.S., followed by Rose Acres Farms and Daybreak Foods

Three years ago, the two companies paid $17.7 million to plaintiffs in a lawsuit alleging they participated in a conspiracy to limit the supply and drive up the cost of eggs.

Villamil  said inflation is currently on a downward trajectory, but there has still been inflation in food products. She said the country is at a stable place at this point in time, but some of Trump’s policies are very concerning, such as enacting a trade war with Canada and Mexico and increasing the country’s deficit spending rather than bringing it down.

RELATED : Voters’ dissatisfaction with the economy ushered Trump’s win, Republican swing nationwide

“It is amazing, the flurry of policies and then policy changes. There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the economy right now,” she said.  “I would like to see more certainty and more stable policies.”

Chad Hart, an Iowa State University agricultural economics professor, said looking back over roughly the past 50 years, egg prices do tend to move with the general economy. However, this correlation has not fit for the past couple of years.

The reason? Hart cited the bird flu.

“Avian influenza is hitting. This has nothing to do with the general economy,” Hart said. “In fact, the general economy has been growing but relatively slowly, yet we see these incredibly strong prices-wise because avian influence is overriding just the general, normal way the egg market responds to economic forces.”

Avian influenza’s amassing impact

Nationally, in January alone, nearly 19 million commercial egg layers were affected by the avian flu, the highest monthly total since the outbreak began in 2022.

As the nation’s largest egg producer, Iowa has surpassed losses from avian flu in other states, with nearly 30 million birds destroyed, according to the  USDA. As of Feb. 27, the the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported the disease in 46 Iowa counties.

Yuko Sato, an Iowa State University veterinary professor and avian expert, said the current strain of avian flu is different from the strain in 2015. The current strain is an H5N1 virus, a type of avian influenza virus that can infect birds, mammals, and humans.

Sato said the magnitudes of the two outbreaks are vastly different. In 2015, Sato said the USDA Wildlife Service reported 71 detections of the virus in wild birds. Through the current outbreak, from 2022 to now, the service has recorded over 12,000 detections in wild birds.

“The floor is lava,” Sato said. “There’s quite a bit of virus out there in the environment, and it’s really hard to prevent against something that’s all abundant there.”

The 2015 outbreak was a lapse in biosecurity, Sato said, and the industry has stepped up protocols, severely reducing farm-to-farm spread during the current outbreak. Sato said that in 2015, 80 percent of the cases where the virus was detected were from farm-to-farm spread. Now, less than 15 percent of the cases are caused by this.

Sato said anxiety and bias may lead people to think farmers are swaying the prices, although this isn’t true and the cost increase is driven by the commodity market.

Stores boost prices, IC grocer keeps the same

Stores across the nation, including those here in Iowa, are boosting egg prices as a result of decreased supply.  Many grocery stores have raised prices or set limits on how many eggs a customer can buy.

Grocery chains including Trader Joe’s and Aldi have begun limiting the number of cartons customers can purchase. Coralville’s Trader Joe’s is enforcing a one carton per customer policy, and Aldi in Iowa City currently has a two-carton limit.

Fareway has not implemented purchase limits but has had to increase egg prices to avoid negative impacts to overall business, Fareway spokesperson Elias Johnson said.

Johnson said the store has not implemented limits because they feel like they can meet the demand right now and haven’t seen an issue with supply, especially the more conventional white egg supply.

A dozen Grade A eggs are priced at $6.49 in eastern Iowa City’s Fareway.

“As far as pricing goes, we’re still trying to keep it as low as possible,” Johnson said. “But it gets to a point where you simply can’t take a loss for an extended period like we have been, and you have to adjust.”

Explaining the process that goes into deciding to increase prices, Johnson said the eggs Fareway buys from distributors are set at a price, and the store’s profit margins are very slim. Johnson said the store was taking a loss on eggs for over a month before having to adjust prices.

Johnson said despite the increase in price, Fareway has been consistent with egg sales and likely experienced an increase in sales due to public panic about dwindling supplies.

Hearing about a shortage sparks panic buying, Johnson said, which further complicates the issue, such as with toilet paper during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Every retailer right now, we’re in a reactionary time right now,” Johnson said. “We’re all having to react to the supplies and the price points, and we still are trying to give our customers the best possible value that we can offer on eggs because they’re so important.”

American Egg Board President and CEO Emily Metz said in a statement to The Daily Iowan the system for egg production is complex and time-sensitive.

Metz said the system is strained, bird flu remains a present risk to poultry flocks, and it will take a sustained period with no additional detections on egg farms to stabilize supply.

“The good news is that egg farmers have a lot of experience working together to move eggs across the country to where they’re needed most — and that’s exactly what they’re doing now,” Matz said in the statement. “We understand how frustrating it is when eggs are not available on a shopping trip, and we expect any shortages to be localized and short-lived as egg farmers work with their retail customers to replenish those stocks.”

While egg prices rise in Iowa City’s stores and throughout the nation, costs remain the same at locally owned and operated John’s Grocery.

As of March 6, a dozen Grade A, free-range, brown eggs cost $3.89 at the store in downtown Iowa City.

General Manager Chris Moore said the reason prices are the same at John’s Grocery is because the store obtains its eggs from Farmers Hen House, an egg grading and distribution facility in Kalona, Iowa, that works with a collection of over 50 small farms.

Moore said the store switched to Farmers Hen House as a supplier during the pandemic when egg prices changed every week. He said big box stores are reliant on other big companies, and if those companies change their price, they are at their whim, whereas John’s has more flexibility to make changes.

“We’re independent, so we’re not really locked in with anybody, and whenever we want to change, it’s not a big issue to,” he said.

The amount of eggs the store has purchased to sell has gone up by about 33 percent since the beginning of the year, Moore said.

Moore said other stores raising their prices is based on what’s happening in the political landscape, and it’s beyond the retailer’s control.

“I wish we had more control over it, but when the prices are raised to us, we raise the prices to the consumer,” he said. “That’s just the nature of the world.”

Buying chicks may not be the answer

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins encouraged people to purchase chickens to help combat the rising prices of eggs, in an interview with Fox News at the beginning of March.

“I think the silver lining in all of this is, how do we in our backyards — we’ve got chickens, too, in our backyard — how to solve for something like this?” Rollins said in the interview. “And people are sort of looking around thinking, ‘Wow, well, maybe I could get a chicken in my backyard,’ and it’s awesome.”

Tractor Supply Co., the largest retailer of live poultry in the country and a leader in backyard poultry sales, reported selling 10 million chicks each year for the past several years — more than double compared to total chick sales 10 years ago.

Nicole Logan, senior vice president and merchandise manager at Tractor Supply Co., said in a statement to the DI that the company has seen interest in raising chickens grow for a while. In the past five years the number of annual customers who purchase poultry in the stores has increased by more than 50 percent.

“Egg prices certainly make people think about getting into this hobby, however, if you are just looking to save money on eggs, then backyard poultry is not a quick fix,” Logan said in the statement.

It takes up to 22 weeks before chickens are mature enough to lay eggs, Logan said in the statement, and it is an investment of time and money to care for them.

Jennifer McCune, of Iowa City, began raising chickens last May and advises against purchasing backyard chickens for the purpose of cutting costs on eggs.

“I have to laugh when people say that they’re going to get backyard chickens to save money because it doesn’t end up that way at all,” she said.

McCune crunched the numbers and found that with her initial $1,500 investment in the chicks, a coop, and all of the necessary supplies, she would need to sell 300 dozen eggs at $5 per dozen to break even.

However, because of Iowa City guidelines, urban chicken owners cannot sell eggs from birds that live in their backyard. Having backyard chickens in Iowa City requires filing for a permit, completing an application, and receiving a signed consent form from all neighboring property owners.

McCune said there are cheaper options to pursue having backyard chickens, but she wanted to ensure her animals are safe from predators, warm and safe in the winter months, and properly taken care of.

“I would encourage anyone to try raising chickens, however, you’re not getting into it to make a dollar, especially in Iowa City,” she said.  “You’re not offsetting the price of eggs at the grocery store, and you are strictly getting chickens for pets, and an added bonus is you get food from them.”