SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
consumer federation of america
Under Trump, Egg Prices Smash Record for Third Straight Month
"The only egg prices Donald Trump is lowering," quipped the DNC chair, "is our nest eggs."
Apr 10, 2025
For the third straight month, U.S retail egg prices have hit a record high, despite falling wholesale prices, no bird flu outbreaks, and President Donald Trump's campaign promises—and recent misleading claims.
On Thursday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported the average retail cost of a dozen eggs rose from $5.90 in February to $6.23 last month.
Egg prices continue to increase despite bird flu outbreak slowing finance.yahoo.com/news/egg-pri...
[image or embed]
— Yahoo Finance (@yahoofinance.com) April 10, 2025 at 6:22 AM
Earlier this week, Trump claimed that "eggs are down 79%" due to his administration's work, a possible reference to the wholesale price, which does not reflect retail cost due to the role that profit-hungry industrial producers and grocery cartels play in inflating prices.
Trump also said that egg prices "are going down more," a statement that contradicts not only recent trends but also his own administration's Food Price Outlook, which forecasts a 57.6% increase in egg prices for 2025, with a prediction interval of 31.1%-91.5%.
Recent record egg prices have largely been driven by an avian flu epidemic that has forced farmers to cull over 166 million birds, most of them egg-laying hens. However, no farms are currently reporting any bird flu outbreaks.
On Tuesday, Cal-Maine Foods, the nation's largest egg producer, announced quarterly profits of $509 million, more than triple its gains from a year ago. The Mississippi-based company, which produces around 20% of U.S. eggs, also enjoyed a more than 600% increase in gross profits between fiscal years 2021-23, according to the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW).
Yet even as its profits soared, Cal-Maine still took $42 million in federal compensation for losses due to bird flu.
The top five egg producers own roughly half of all U.S. laying hens. The biggest of those corporations is Cal-Maine, which just announced quarterly profits of $509 million — more than 3x what it made a year ago. Corporate concentration + bird flu = a price-hiking free for all.
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) April 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Last month, the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division launched an investigation of alleged price-fixing by the nation's largest egg producers, including Cal-Maine, which isn't even the largest recipient of avian flu-related government assistance. Versova, which operates farms in Iowa and Ohio, has been allotted more than $107 million in federal bird flu relief, The Washington Postreported Wednesday. Hillandale Farms, a Pennsylvania-based company sold last month to Global Eggs, received $53 million in avian flu-related subsidies.
"For those companies to be bailed out and then turn around and set exploitative prices, it just adds insult to injury for consumers," Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, told the Post. "Absolutely, it's unfair."
FWW research director Amanda Starbuck took aim at the corporate food system, saying Thursday that "the industry is proving itself effective at extracting enormous profits out of American consumers."
"We are all paying for it—at the store, with food shortages, and with the growing threat of the next pandemic," she continued.
"Restoring sanity to the grocery aisle will require immediate action to transform our food system," Starbuck added. "To lower egg prices, the Trump administration must take on the food monopolies, hasten and prioritize its investigation into corporate price fixing, and stop the spread of factory farms."
The fresh CPI figures weren't all bad news, as the index saw its first decline in five years, falling 0.1% mainly on the strength of lower oil prices. The 12-month increase in consumer prices also slowed from 2.8% to 2.4%.
However, the mildly positive CPI news was overshadowed by the economic uncertainty caused by Trump's mercurial global trade war, including a ramped-up 145% tariff on imports from China, one of the top U.S. trading partners, and ongoing stock market chaos.
"The only egg prices Donald Trump is lowering," Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin quipped earlier this week, "is our nest eggs."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump CFPB Accused of Siding With 'Bottom-Feeder' Payday Lenders Over Struggling Workers
"A policy of 'hear no evil, see no evil, punish no evil' is a sure-fire way to promote lawless behavior," said one advocate.
Mar 31, 2025
"Regulatory relief for small loan providers" was how the Trump administration described its decision not to prioritize enforcing a rule meant to protect people who are financially struggling from predatory payday lenders—but one consumer protection advocate said Monday that the announcement signals a policy that that is certain to "promote lawless behavior" by corporations.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), whose actions aimed at protecting working families and consumers from big banks and other corporations have been attacked for years by Republicans, announced last Friday that under the Trump administration, it will not enforce a rule meant to safeguard people from fees they accrue when payday lenders repeatedly attempt to debit their accounts.
Part of the 2017 payday loan rule, the bounced payment rule was set to go into effect on Sunday—barring payday lenders, "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) lending services, and other predatory lenders from continuing to make attempts to debit bank accounts after a loan customer's payment bounced twice. The lenders would be required under the rule to gain the customer's permission after two failed attempts to retrieve the payment.
When the CFPB announced last year that the rule was set to go into effect on March 30, 2025, it noted that it had "found one instance of a lender making 11 failed withdrawal attempts in one day"—subjecting the consumer to "a pile of junk fees" including nonsufficient (NSF) funds fees, overdraft charges, and others.
Adam Rust, director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, said Monday that the CFPB had "sided with bottom-feeder payday lenders at the expense of vulnerable borrowers struggling to make ends meet."
"The CFPB is designed to be a law enforcement agency," said Rust. "A policy of 'hear no evil, see no evil, punish no evil' is a surefire way to promote lawless behavior."
The agency said it would also not enforce rules applying to vehicle title loans, which can have high interest rates and are banned or limited in at least 30 states.
Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center, noted that former CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the 5th Circuit previously upheld "the bare minimum protection against multiple NSF fees on unaffordable loans."
"It's outrageous that the CFPB will not enforce the law that prohibits payday lenders and other 200% APR lenders from continually debiting people's accounts, subjecting them to multiple NSF and overdraft fees," said Saunders. "Buy now, pay later lenders that make unaffordable loans should not be allowed to keep hitting your bank account after payments bounce twice. It's unconscionable to have greater protections for payday lenders than for people struggling to afford basic necessities."
A Pew survey in 2013 revealed that 1-in-4 payday loan customers faced an overdraft fee due to the lender's attempt to collect a payment from an account with insufficient funds.
The CFPB said it was contemplating "issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking to narrow the scope of the rule."
"By allowing payday lenders to repeatedly debit borrowers' empty bank accounts," Nadine Chabrier of the Center for Responsible Lending toldConsumer Affairs, "the CFPB's political leadership is giving a free pass for payday lenders to kick people when they're down."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Alarming': Trump CFPB Drops Cases Against Companies Accused of Cheating Consumers
"This sends a dangerous message to corporate America that financial fraud and abuse will go unchecked," said one critic.
Feb 27, 2025
Consumer advocates on Thursday slammed the Trump administration for dropping various enforcement actions against companies accused of activities that include ripping off savings account holders, illegally collecting on student loans, and engaging in an unlawful mortgage broker kickback scheme.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's notices of voluntary dismissal came as the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held a hearing for Jonathan McKernan, President Donald Trump's pick to lead the CFPB—which Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk has called "a gift to big banks and special interests."
"We're getting a very strong message here that if you're a bank, if you're a student loan servicer, and you're violating the law, the CFPB is not only not going to pursue you, they're going to let you out of your case scot-free."
While the former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation board member awaits confirmation from the GOP-controlled Senate, Trump and Russell Vought, the CFPB's temporary leader, have wasted no time trying to gut the agency and undo the work of its former director, Rohit Chopra, who oversaw cases against the following companies:
- Capital One, accused of cheating millions of banking customers out of more than $2 billion in interest;
- Heights Finance, accused of loan-churning practices that harvested hundreds of millions of dollars in costs and fees;
- Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), accused of collecting on student loans discharged in bankruptcy and sending false information to credit reporting companies;
- Rocket Homes, accused of providing incentives to real estate agents and brokers who steered homebuyers toward its loans; and
- Vanderbilt Mortgage & Finance, accused of trapping people in risky loans for manufactured homes.
Court paperwork "in the Rocket Homes case notes that the 'Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dismisses this action, with prejudice, against all defendants,'" according toThe Associated Press. "Dismissing a case without prejudice means that it cannot be refiled. Similar wording was used in the dismissals of the CFPB's Capital One and Vanderbilt Mortgage suits."
Those decisions came after the CFPB last week
dropped a case against SoLo Funds, which the agency accused of misleading borrowers about loan costs. Vought had then teased further action, saying on social media Sunday that "shockingly, the CFPB tried to destroy this company, SoLo, which incurred millions in legal fees and had to lay off 30% of its workforce. It was wrong and we dismissed the case. More to come but the weaponization of 'consumer protection' must end."
Meanwhile, critics like Christine Chen Zinner, consumer policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform, are framing the CFPB's dismissals as a betrayal of the agency's mission.
"The old CFPB stood ready to protect consumers and wrestle back the ill-gotten gains of big banks like Capital One," Chen Zinner said Thursday. "With this decision, the Trump-appointed leadership is letting Capital One steal $2 billion from its depositors, another example of this administration standing up for Wall Street at the expense of everyday people who deserve the CFPB's protection."
Erin Witte, director of consumer protection at the Consumer Federation of America, also released a statement focused on the bank case.
"The CFPB was created to be a watchdog for big banks, not a lapdog, and dismissing this case is a gift to Capital One," said Witte. "$2 billion is a drop in the bucket for Capital One–less than half a percent of its total assets—but returning this money would make a huge difference to the hardworking Americans who trusted Capital One to safeguard their savings and were kept in the dark about how to earn more."
Witte also described the full list of dismissals as "unprecedented," and toldReuters, "We're getting a very strong message here that if you're a bank, if you're a student loan servicer, and you're violating the law, the CFPB is not only not going to pursue you, they're going to let you out of your case scot-free."
Accountable.US highlighted that "the news stands in stark and alarming contrast to McKernan's remarks... to senators, promising to review all existing CFPB lawsuits before making any decisions around dropping litigation."
Student Borrower Protection Center executive director Mike Pierce said in a statement about the PHEAA case that "Russ Vought and Donald Trump sided with a lawless and corrupt student loan company at the expense of borrowers across the country—another sign that powerful financial interests are driving the capture and demolition of the federal consumer watchdog."
"This is a slap in the face to students, student loan borrowers, and working people everywhere," Pierce continued. "PHEAA lied to some of the poorest and most vulnerable Americans, then illegally hounded them for debt that they did not owe, all to make a buck. And today, cowardly political sycophants backed down on the federal government’s only effort to hold PHEAA accountable."
"Of course, like all fascist toadies, Russ Vought will rightly be forgotten by history and sink into well-deserved irrelevance. But until then, law enforcement at every level of government must rush in to fill the void left by a federal consumer protection agency that now stands only to serve billionaires and big corporations," he added. "Remember: these people prey on those in need because they are motivated only by the desire to exercise power, and they are motivated to do so because they are cowards. It is everyone's job to remind Vought and his cronies of their powers' limits, and to remind the world of their cowardice."
Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center, also directed some blame at billionaire Elon Musk, the head of Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is leading the administration's efforts to slash the federal workforce and spending.
"The Trump administration and Elon Musk are showing us exactly what it means not to have ordinary people protected by a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—they are dismissing enforcement cases that sought to return billions to working families harmed by corporations accused of egregious conduct that violated the law," said Saunders. "On top of the stop-work order and firing of CFPB workers doing their jobs, this sends a dangerous message to corporate America that financial fraud and abuse will go unchecked. We must preserve a strong, independent, and functional CFPB to stand up to corporate bullies."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a former bankruptcy professor, is the mastermind behind the CFPB. She is also the ranking member of the panel which McKernan appeared before on Thursday. The American Prospect executive editor David Dayen reported that the senator informed the nominee about the dismissals during the hearing.
"Literally while you've been sitting here and you've been talking about the importance of following the law, we get the news that the CFPB is dropping lawsuits against companies that are cheating American families, or alleged to be cheating American families," Warren said. "It seems to me the timing of that announcement is designed to embarrass you and to show exactly who is in charge of this agency right now: Elon Musk and his little band of hackers."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular