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bird flu
Inflation Numbers Don't Alter Fears That Trump Has US Economy 'Barreling Toward Recession'
"Instead of trying to lower the cost of living, he's doubling down on his plans to give massive tax breaks to billionaires and giant corporations," said one Trump critic.
Mar 12, 2025
As the U.S. Department of Labor released its monthly consumer price index report on Wednesday, President Donald Trump's new tariffs for steel and aluminum imports took effect, highlighting his threat to the economy and working-class Americans.
The CPI, "a key gauge of inflation, showed that prices rose by 2.8% in February from a year earlier, driven by price relief from airfares and gas," The Washington Postreported. "That was cooler than the 3% annual gain reported for January and an unexpected signal of progress in combating high inflation."
While gasoline prices fell 1.0% and airline fares dropped 4%, the cost of food and shelter rose 0.2% and 0.3% respectively. The bird flu continued to drive up egg prices, which jumped 10.4%. The report adds, "Indexes that increased over the month include medical care, used cars and trucks, household furnishings and operations, recreation, apparel, and personal care."
The White House celebrated the inflation data, but economists were quick to point out that the numbers don't account for the latest developments in Trump's trade war: the new tariffs taking effect on Wednesday—after chaos-causing mixed messages from the president on Tuesday—and Canada and Europe's swift retaliatory measures.
"It's a classic head fake," Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, told the Post. "Going forward, tariffs are going to increase the costs of manufacturing in general and autos in particular."
Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial, similarly toldReuters that "trade wars are expected to raise prices in future inflation reports," though he also said the odds that the Federal Reserve can cut interest rates "again this year once the smoke from the tariff back-and-forth clears increased today nonetheless."
Trump's trade policies and other recent decisions, including letting billionaire Elon Musk gut the federal government, have elevated fears of a recession—which one economist suggested naming after the president—and even sparked speculation that he is tanking the economy on purpose.
In a Wednesday statement about the CPI report, Groundwork Collaborative chief of policy and advocacy Alex Jacquez said that "while families are still struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their head, the administration's response is that they should raise their own chickens in their backyards."
"Every economic indicator suggests that President Trump has us barreling toward a recession and stagflation. But instead of trying to lower the cost of living, he's doubling down on his plans to give massive tax breaks to billionaires and giant corporations," Jacquez added, referring to congressional Republicans' efforts to send Trump legislation that would fund tax giveaways by slashing Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
In addition to Jacquez's comments, Groundwork and Data for Progress also released a poll showing that over a fifth of U.S. voters across the political spectrum are most frustrated with rising grocery costs. Another 10% are most frustrated with high bills for utilities like electricity, gas, and water. They were followed by around voters frustrated with out-of-pocket healthcare costs, rent or mortgage, or health insurance premiums.
Groundwork Collaborative warned that "Trump's threat of new tariffs risks making the housing crisis worse. By driving up the cost of construction materials, his trade war with Canada could shrink the supply of new housing, keeping overall prices high. That, in turn, forces the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates elevated, making mortgages more expensive."
The think tank also stressed that the Trump administration is "destroying affordable healthcare" by fighting to cut Medicaid and Medicare, reinstate work requirements, and limit Affordable Care Act enrollment; "raising energy bills" by freezing funds for clean energy projects while advocating for planet-wrecking fossil fuels; and "making groceries more unaffordable" by pushing SNAP cuts "instead of tackling corporate price gouging and market consolidation in the food industry."
Food & Water Watch similarly responded to the new CPI data by calling out failures to crack down on corporate price gouging—as detailed in the group's report from last week titled, The Rotten Egg Oligarchy.
"Record-high egg prices have everything to do with corporate greed," Food & Water Watch research director Amanda Starbuck said Wednesday. "While skyrocketing prices transform eggs into a luxury item, the food monopolies are seeing green. President Trump needs to get serious about lowering American food prices—starting with cracking down on the food monopolies exploiting the worsening bird flu crisis for profit."
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The Real Reason for Soaring Egg Prices? Gouging by the 'Rotten Egg Oligarchy'
A new Food & Water Watch report details how "corporations use the worsening bird flu crisis to jack up egg prices, even as their own factory farms fuel the spread of disease."
Mar 04, 2025
The nation's largest egg producers would have American consumers believe that avian flu and inflation are behind soaring prices, but a report published Tuesday shows corporate price gouging is the real culprit driving the record cost of the dietary staple.
The fourth installment of Food & Water Watch's (FWW) Economic Cost of Food Monopolies series—titled The Rotten Egg Oligarchy—reports that the average price of a dozen eggs in the United States hit an all-time high of $4.95 in January 2025. That's more than two-and-a-half times the average price from three years ago.
"While egg prices spiral out of reach, making eggs a luxury item, Big Ag is profiting hand over fist," FWW research director Amanda Starbuck said in a statement. "But make no mistake—today's high prices are built on a foundation of corporate price gouging. Our research shows how corporations use the worsening bird flu crisis to jack up egg prices, even as their own factory farms fuel the spread of disease."
FWW found that "egg prices were already rising before the current [avian flu] outbreak hit U.S. commercial poultry flocks in February 2022, and have never returned to pre-outbreak levels."
Furthermore, "egg price spikes hit regions that were bird flu-free until recently," the report states. "The U.S. Southeast remained free of bird flu in its table egg flocks until January 2025, and actually increased egg production in 2022 and 2023 over 2021 levels. Nevertheless, retail egg prices in the Southeast rose alongside January 2023's national price spikes."
"The corporate food system is to blame for exacerbating the scale of the outbreak as well as the high cost of eggs," the publication continues. "Factory farms are virus incubators, with the movement of animals, machines, and workers between operations helping to spread the virus."
"Meanwhile, just a handful of companies produce the majority of our eggs, giving them outsized control over the prices paid by retailers, who often pass on rising costs to consumers," the paper adds. "This highly consolidated food system also enables companies to leverage a temporary shortage in one region to raise prices across the entire country."
Cal-Maine, the nation's top egg producer, enjoyed a more than 600% increase in gross profits between fiscal years 2021-23, according to FWW. The Mississippi-based company did not suffer any avian flu outbreaks in fiscal year 2023, during which it sold more eggs than during the previous two years. Yet it still sold conventional eggs at nearly three times the price as in 2021, amounting to over $1 billion in windfall profits. Meanwhile Cal-Maine paid shareholders dividends totaling $250 million in 2023, 40 times more during the previous fiscal year.
The report highlights how factory farming creates ideal conditions for the spread of avian flu, a single case of which requires the extermination of the entire flock at the affected facility, under federal regulations.
"These impacts cannot be understated," FWW stressed. "Today's average factory egg farm confines over 800,000 birds, with some operations confining several million. This magnifies the scale of animal suffering and death, as well as the enormous environmental and safety burden of disposing of a million or more infected bird carcasses."
Citing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) figures, The Guardianreported Tuesday that more than 54 million birds have been affected in the past three months alone.
Egg producers know precisely how the supply-and-demand implications of these outbreaks and subsequent culls can boost their bottom lines. Meanwhile, they play a dangerous game as epidemiologists widely view a potential avian flu mutation that can be transmitted from birds to humans as the next major pandemic threat—one that's exacerbated by the Trump administration's withdrawal from the World Health Organization and cuts to federal agencies focused on averting the next pandemic.
"We cannot afford to place our food system in the hands of a few corporations that put corporate profit above all else."
So far, 70 avian flu cases—one of them fatal—have been reported in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, under Trump, the CDC has stopped publishing regular reports on its avian flu response plans and activities. The USDA, meanwhile, said it "accidentally" terminated staffers working on avian flu response during the firing flurry under Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. The agency is scrambling to reverse the move.
"We cannot afford to place our food system in the hands of a few corporations that put corporate profit above all else," the FWW report argues. "Nor can we allow the factory farm system to continue polluting our environment and serving as the breeding ground for the next human pandemic."
"We need to enforce our nation's antitrust laws to go after corporate price fixing and collusion," the publication adds. "We also need a national ban on new and expanding factory farms, while transitioning to smaller, regional food systems that are more resilient to disruptions."
That is highly unlikely under Trump, whose policies—from taxation to regulation and beyond—have overwhelmingly favored the ultrawealthy and corporations over working Americans. Meanwhile, one of the president's signature campaign promises, to lower food prices "on day one," has evaporated amid ever-rising consumer costs.
According to the USDA's latest Food Price Outlook, overall food prices are projected to rise 3.4% in 2025. Eggs, however, are forecast to soar a staggering 41.1% this year—and possibly by as much as 74.9%.
"If President Trump has any interest in fulfilling his campaign pledge to lower food prices," Starbuck stressed, "he must begin by taking on the food monopolies exploiting pandemic threat for profit."
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Amidst Cuts Impacting Bird Flu Response, Groups Demand Timely Release of CDC Updates
"New information and transmission countermeasures can and must be developed and shared as rapidly as the virus evolves," wrote the letter's authors.
Feb 25, 2025
A broad coalition of environmental, health, and animal groups is demanding greater transparency from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when it comes to disseminating information about H5N1, or bird flu, that has sickened hundreds of dairy cattle herds, killed millions of chickens, and also infected dozens of humans.
The Monday letter, which was signed by two staff members at the Center for Biological Diversity on behalf of a larger group that includes Earthjustice, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and others, was sent to CDC acting Director Susan Monarez.
"New information and transmission countermeasures can and must be developed and shared as rapidly as the virus evolves," according to the letter, which says that it has been over a month since the CDC issued a regular update about its bird flu response activity.
On the CDC's "News & Spotlight" page on the section of its website dedicated to bird flu, no update has been posted since January 17. Prior to that date, the page featured regular updates, such as a post about the agency's accomplishments related to curbing bird flu in 2024-25.
Also, the CDC "appears to have delayed or denied the publication of key scientific research on avian influenza in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, including a study suggesting that infected house cats may be transmitting [highly pathogenic avian influenza] to humans," according to the letter. The letter links to February 6 reporting from The New York Times, which says that the CDC briefly posted but then took down a report that discussed cases of potential human-to-cat and cat-to-human transmission of bird flu.
That report now appears online and was posted as part of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for February 20.
"This is exactly the kind of information that concerns the public and should have been shared broadly—not withheld—so that Americans could avoid this route of infection and researchers and public health officials could understand and defeat this virus," the letter states.
According to the authors of the letter, publicizing data about bird flu is crucial, especially given reports of federal personnel cuts potentially impacting the government's bird flu response. Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it had sent termination letters to "several" staff working on the government's bird flu response, and that the agency was working to reverse the firings.
"The CDC should release to the public all information related to the avian influenza outbreak as soon as it is confirmed. This commitment to public transparency is essential to an effective, whole-of-society response to this growing disease threat," the letter concludes.
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