YOU CAN'T SIGNAL VIRTUE WITHOUT EXPENSIVE EGGS.

Are Cage-Free Laws To Blame for High Egg Prices?  You betcha.

Since 2018, California, Massachusetts, and close to a dozen other states have adopted cage-free laws. Banning caged eggs is a classic example of a supposedly altruistic government policy resulting in detrimental unintended consequences.

Given that over 60 percent of the nation's eggs are still laid by caged hens, residents in these cage-free states are effectively cut off from two-thirds of America's egg supply. Predictably, in-state egg producers in these cage-free states have supported the laws, given that they are tantamount to sidelining the vast majority of out-of-state egg-producing competition, which in turn can allow the in-state farms to dominate local egg markets.

While cage-free mandates are obviously not the sole reason egg prices are skyrocketing, their impact can't be totally dismissed. In Royal Oak, Michigan—a cage-free mandate state—a dozen eggs went for $6.29 this past January. In comparison, just over the border in Toledo, Ohio, which has no such cage-free law, eggs could be found for under $4 a dozen.

In Nevada—also a cage-free mandate state—lawmakers were so concerned about the cage ban's impact on egg prices that they passed an amendment to their cage-free law that allows for its temporary suspension for 120 days in the event of an emergency. A study published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics estimated that California's cage-free law would result in annual welfare losses of $72 million for Golden State households and losses of up to 18 percent of profits for the egg industry.

Cage-free laws could be viewed as justifiable if they created discernibly more humane habitats for the chickens. But as anyone who has viewed pictures of a "cage-free farm" can attest, they often consist of hordes of chickens jammed inside a large space, versus a caged farm, which consists of hordes of chickens each jammed in small individual spaces. Is one actually any better than the other? For years, terms like "free-range" and "cage-free" have been lauded as advances in humane farming, when in reality, few, if any, eggs with these designations involve chickens whimsically tromping through idyllic grass meadows, pecking at free-range bugs.

The DOGE boys would like to remove the impedimenta to interstate commerce, but the litigation will not be over easy.

These state-level laws could potentially be susceptible to constitutional challenges on "dormant commerce clause" grounds, under the theory that these protectionist rules unduly burden interstate commerce. However, a recent similar case involving a protectionist pork-production law was barely upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a closely divided and heavily fragmented decision.

There is no doubt that the bird flu is spiking egg prices. But, as ever, the government's hands are far from clean in this scrambled mess.

Yes, and the rent-seeking in the farm cartel is all it is cracked up to be.