Trump said beef, egg, chicken prices are falling: What the data shows

President Donald Trump said in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night that his administration’s policies were “rapidly ending” high prices for certain foods, including proteins in the U.S. diet, like beef, chicken and eggs.

However, prices for chicken and beef have increased since Trump took office in January 2025.

Egg prices have indeed fallen significantly — but, like beef prices, have been influenced more by supply-and-demand factors specific to those markets than federal policy, according to agricultural economists.

The price moves also come as the Trump administration said it was “ending the war on protein” by announcing new U.S. nutrition guidelines that emphasize protein, full-fat dairy and vegetables.

“President Trump is right: inflation has cooled, and prices of many everyday essentials have fallen or are on the right trajectory,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in an emailed statement. “The entire Administration remains laser-focused on delivering economic relief for the American people.”

Trump said during his State of the Union address that beef prices are “starting to come down significantly.”

Federal data shows that beef prices have started to decline in some cases, but remain near multi-year or record highs.

A pound of ground beef cost $6.75 per pound, on average, in January — the highest level on record, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices have increased 22% over the past year, from $5.55 per pound in January 2025, when Trump started his second term. That’s the fastest annual inflation rate since June 2020, during Trump’s first term in office.

Prices for other cuts of beef are also elevated, according to federal data.

For example, the price of uncooked beef steaks was $12.30 per pound, on average, in January, down slightly from an all-time high of $12.51 per pound in December, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Prices are up 13% over the past year.

Uncooked beef roasts cost $8.82 per pound, on average, in January, down from a record high of $9.29 per pound in November. Average prices are up 14% in the past year.

Beef prices are “still up substantially” over the past year, said Michael Swanson, chief agricultural economist at the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute.

A recent decline in prices is “very poor consolation for most people,” Swanson said.

There were 27.6 million beef cows in the U.S. as of Jan. 1, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s the lowest supply of these cows — which are earmarked for the beef market — since 1961, according to USDA historical data tracked by Martinez.

There were about 86.2 million overall U.S. cattle — including other types like those for milk production — as of Jan. 1, the lowest tally since 1951, according to USDA data.

Many factors have contributed to the striking decline in the U.S. cattle herd, Bernt Nelson, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, a trade group, wrote in October.

Persistent drought has caused “deteriorating” pasture conditions for cows, Nelson wrote.

Good pasture conditions lower costs to raise cattle, while poor conditions force farmers and ranchers to ship in hay from other parts of the country, contributing to record costs to raise and feed cattle, he said. As a result, many farmers sold off female cows rather than keeping them to produce calves, he said.

“It’s hard to produce more beef when you lack the cattle to do that,” said Amy Smith, a food economist at Advanced Economic Solutions.

It also takes a long time, about three years, to breed cows for the beef market, she said.

Meanwhile, demand for beef among U.S. households has increased even as prices have risen, economists said.

The Retail All Fresh Beef Demand Index in 2025 touched its highest levels since at least 2000, Martinez said of USDA data.

“Covid-19 and the whole pandemic drove a lot of new demand,” Martinez said. “Everyone became backyard grilling heroes. …There’s been this change in the taste and preference for beef that we’ve never seen before.”

Economists said they don’t believe beef prices will continue to fall in the near term due to supply-and-demand dynamics in the beef market.

The Trump administration has sought to boost supply through policies that incentivize beef imports from countries such as Argentina. Imports were already at record highs in 2025, according to Nelson of the Farm Bureau.

However, such market interventions have the “unintended consequence” of lowering prices paid to U.S. cattle farmers, Nelson wrote.

Increased imports “would add another barrier to growing the cattle herd and potentially incentivize more contraction in the cattle inventory,” he wrote. “This could drive beef prices even higher and increase U.S. reliance on imported beef to meet domestic demand.”

That figure is in line with Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which shows the average price for a dozen large Grade A eggs has declined about 59% from March 2025 to $2.58 per dozen in January, from a record high of $6.23 per dozen.

Prices are down 48% from January 2025, when they were $4.95 per dozen.

Much of that decline is a reversion to more typical prices following a supply shock triggered by a historic outbreak of bird flu, according to economists.

“We’re seeing remarkable drops [in price] from astounding highs,” said Swanson of the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute.

“Highly pathogenic avian influenza,” more commonly known as bird flu, propelled egg prices to dizzying highs in late 2024 and early 2025, economists said.

The disease is highly contagious and lethal for birds, including chickens on commercial egg farms. To prevent spread, farmers must kill their entire flock if they detect a case, economists said.

In all, tens of millions of egg-laying chickens died. For example, more than 38 million commercial egg-laying birds died in 2024, according to USDA data tracked by the University of Arkansas. Over 20 million more died in early 2025.

Since 2022, when the outbreak began, the U.S. has lost more than 140 million egg-laying chickens, said Smith of Advanced Economic Solutions.

“You just can’t rebound quickly from that,” she said.

While the disease hasn’t disappeared, it so far hasn’t been “nearly as impactful” in late 2025 and into 2026, Smith said.

Consumer demand has also likely fallen as prices surged, helping to ease prices at the grocery store, she said. Prices may rise over the next several weeks as the Easter holiday approaches, which is like the Super Bowl for the egg industry, she said.

However, average prices for chicken are up about 1% over the past year, according to the consumer price index. Consumers paid $4.17 per pound of boneless chicken breast in January, on average, up from $3.97 per pound a year earlier, according to BLS data.

Bird flu hasn’t had as significant an impact on chickens raised for meat consumption as for chickens raised for egg production, economists said.