How Americans are dealing with egg prices

Eating fewer eggs, buying in bulk and raising backyard chickens are among the ways Americans are dealing with record-high egg prices.

Some 61% of Americans are eating fewer eggs in response to egg prices, followed by using eggs less frequently in cooking and baking (44%) and seeking out stores with the lowest egg prices (34%), according to a survey of 1,000 Americans by Clarify Capital.

Less popular responses to the high prices include buying eggs from local farms (11%), switching to egg substitutes (10%), such as plant-based options and flaxseed, and raising backyard chickens (5%).

And 14% of Americans said they were making no changes, meaning high egg prices don't bother them.

Egg prices have surged to record highs of an average $7 for a dozen eggs recently, with residents of certain states feeling the pain much more.

In Illinois, prices for a dozen eggs are expected to go up to $4.22 in 2025 compared with just 42 cents in 2018, marking the biggest increase in the nation, according to World Population Review.

Egg prices have more than doubled and often multipled much higher in every state, except Alaska that has an expected 94% increase.

The good news is egg prices are expected to drop to an average of $5.18 a dozen in 2025, according to World Population Review.

But Americans are divided on the future: 51% don't expect a drop in egg prices within the next year, while 49% are hopeful, the survey said.

Some 67% of Americans are blaming a recent outbreak of the bird flu as the reason prices have risen, but others blame government policies and regulations (31%), grocery stores taking advantage of inflation (23%) and egg producers increasing prices unfairly (15%).

The Department of Justice is investigating multiple egg producers for ratcheting up prices in violation of antitrust laws, The New York Times reported in March.

“Egg producers and grocery stores may leverage the current avian flu outbreak as an opportunity to further constrain supply or hike up egg prices to increase profits,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and other democratic lawmakers said in a letter to President Trump in January, the Times reported.