The Brief

After months of sticker shock from the nationwide egg crisis, relief might finally be on the way.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Friday that the national average wholesale price of eggs has been steadily declining since late February. In other words, the cost that distributors are charging retailers is going down.

According to the latest USDA report, the average wholesale cost of large white eggs was $4.15 per dozen — about half of what it was just a few weeks ago.

The drop in wholesale prices is thanks to the absence of major bird flu outbreaks so far in March, which has allowed the nation's egg supply to start recovering. That's a positive sign, economists told NPR, but how soon prices might change at the grocery store will depend on a few key factors.

Here's what to know.

Retail egg prices may drop soon if bird flu stays at bay

Wholesale egg prices have been dropping for three weeks in a row, according to the USDA. But that might not be reflected at your local grocery store. According to Joseph Balagtas, a professor of agriculture economics at Purdue University, that's not unusual.

"The eggs we see [at] the store today were purchased by the retailer at a wholesale price that prevailed a couple weeks ago," he said in an email. Inventory issues could play a role, as well, but he anticipates that store egg prices may start to ease within a matter of days.

Jadrian Wooten, an economics professor at Virginia Tech, said part of the reason for the lag could be that grocery store chains are wary of cutting prices too quickly. There's still an ongoing concern about future bird flu outbreaks, which could disrupt supply again.

"They're always going to lower egg prices a little bit slower than the wholesale side of things would do," he said. Wooten believes the biggest factor will be whether the virus stays contained.

" As long as we're on the path that we're on, we should see those prices come down in the next few weeks." he said. "Unfortunately, if bird flu were to spring up again, if there was another major outbreak at another large farm, then I think you'll see the exact opposite."

Lower demand might help lower cost. So don't panic-buy your eggs, experts say

It's no surprise that soaring egg costs have left many Americans looking elsewhere for a source of protein. Ironically, that attitude shift may be helping keep egg prices from rising even further.

"That should happen, because high prices is really the market signal to us consumers to buy fewer eggs. If we buy fewer eggs, that leads to some lower prices," David Anderson, a livestock economist and professor at Texas A&M University, said in an email.

That's the reason Wooten from Virginia Tech advises customers against buying eggs in bulk when they're worried that prices might go up. " Some of what might be driving egg prices is the panic buying that people have been doing over the past couple months," he said.

What about Easter and Passover? Economists tell NPR that those holidays usually cause a bump in demand. But they don't suspect it will be a major barrier to bringing down retail costs.

What about the concern over price gouging?

In January, a group of Democratic lawmakers said food companies "often exploit crises like pandemics and avian flu outbreaks as an opportunity to raise prices beyond what is needed to cover rising costs." And earlier this month, several media outlets reported that the Justice Department had opened an investigation into whether major egg producers played an intentional role in spiking prices. (NPR has not independently confirmed the investigation.)

But the economists NPR spoke to remain skeptical that price gouging was at play. Balagtas from Purdue said wholesale prices have consistently aligned with trends in bird flu cases and egg production. He said there's evidence to suggest retailers have exercised restraint when it comes to raising prices.

"From May 2024 through last month, wholesale egg prices rose by 350%. Over that same time period, retail prices rose by 120%," he said. Balagtas added that it suggests "retailers are trying not to pass the full costs of higher wholesale prices on to consumers."

Anderson from Texas A&M University similarly said he does not believe the concern of price-gouging applies to the egg crisis, because the fight against bird flu has been so costly for producers.

"We know bird flu has dramatically cut supplies leading to higher prices," he said. "If you got bird flu, then you have no eggs to sell and you are not benefiting from higher prices."

Will a carton of eggs ever be $2 again?

It's head-spinning to remember that a dozen eggs were close to $2 for a brief time in 2023. Last month, NPR reported that a dozen eggs could cost anywhere from $4 to more than $8 in grocery stores. The average price was $5.90 for a dozen large eggs in February, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index.

Wooten said he's hopeful that Americans can see egg prices return to between $2 to $3. "I don't think it's going to take years to get us back to that," he said.

It takes six months to a year for farms to recuperate when they lose a flock of egg-laying hens to bird flu.

"Hopefully by the summer, like those farms that lost a bunch, they would now have basically brand new hens that are reproducing kind of full steam ahead," Wooten said. "But again, that goes back to assuming that bird flu doesn't spike back up."
Copyright 2025 NPR

A divided Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted 4-3 Tuesday to issue preliminary layoff notices to more than 3,000 employees, as part of a reduction-in-force plan to reduce the budget after several years of spending more money than it brings in.

Even as California is poised to fund schools at record-high levels, Los Angeles Unified and other districts have grappled with increased costs. For example, LAUSD hired more staff to support students during the pandemic, and now the federal relief dollars that initially funded those positions are gone.

For the past two years, the district has relied on reserves to backfill a multi-billion-dollar deficit. The district projects a deficit of $877 million next school year, about 14% of the 2026-2027 budget.

Who’s being cut?

LAUSD staff estimate the proposed cuts impact less than 1% of the district’s more than 83,000 member workforce.

Notices would go out to:

• 2,600 certificated and classified contract management employees and certificated administrators. 
• 657 central office and centrally funded classified positions. More than a third of these are IT technicians, by far the largest group.
• The plan also calls for reduced hours and pay for several dozen positions.

District leaders have emphasized that an employee who receives a RIF notice will not necessarily be cut.

What's next?

The reduction in force vote is the first step in a monthslong process that could result in layoffs for a still-to-be-determined number of positions because impacted employees may be moved to other positions. Staff said the board would vote to finalize any un-rescinded layoff notices in May or June.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

About 15% of California households lack access to high-speed internet, according to the latest report from UC Riverside. Researchers pointed to affordability as one of the biggest barriers to closing the persistent digital divide.

Edward Helderop, associate director at UCR’s Center for Geospatial Sciences and report author, told LAist that the findings weren't surprising.

“A lot of American households and California households don't have high-speed internet available at home,” Helderop said. “It's sort of just an unfortunate reality that that's the case for the state of California.”

What does the report say? 

Nearly one in seven households in California doesn’t have reliable internet access, according to the report. The biggest barrier continues to be affordability. Even in urban areas, like Los Angeles, where broadband internet is more widely available, the average monthly cost can range from $70 to $80 per month.

But in rural areas, broadband internet is still widely unavailable because of a lack of infrastructure investments from private companies. Only two-thirds of rural households have broadband access at home.

“This digital divide represents not just a technological failure, but a profound barrier to economic opportunity, educational advancement, and civic participation that undermines California’s potential for shared prosperity,” the report states.

Experts also call for mandatory broadband data transparency — internet providers should be required to publicly disclose their service speeds, pricing, reliability metrics and coverage areas.

“Private telecom companies administering the service, they're under no obligation to maintain publicly available data sets in the same way that you might get with other utilities,” Helderop said. “There are issues with the fact that the advertised speeds don't really match up with the actual speeds that people experience at home.”

Researchers also recommend that broadband providers be regulated as utilities, like water and power, monitoring rates, quality and service obligations.

“When we regulate something like a utility, it comes with a few regulations that we take for granted,” Helderop said. “Something like a universal service obligation, in which the utility … their primary motive is to provide universal service, so to provide the service to every household in California.”

As a public utility, officials could ensure that providers are offering the same type of service to every household in the state, as well as regulate rates.

Why it matters 

Norma Fernandez, CEO at Everyone On, said access to affordable, high-speed internet is a basic necessity.

"Still, too many families, particularly those in under-resourced communities, predominantly of color, are still left out,” Fernandez said. “Expanding reliable connectivity means addressing affordability, investing in community-centered solutions, and ensuring that digital access is part of every policy conversation."

Digital equity advocates say they see the need from local families every day, but available data doesn’t reflect that.

“On the maps, families appear to live in ‘connected’ neighborhoods, but in reality, they still can’t afford to get online because the monopoly provider’s plans are unaffordable,” Natalie Gonzalez, director at Digital Equity Los Angeles. “The provider-reported broadband maps don’t match what residents experience on the ground, and that gap has real consequences.”

In L.A., for example, hundreds of thousands of households lack reliable internet, but only a fraction qualify for public funding because available data says they’re already served, Gonzalez added.

“Public investment alone doesn’t guarantee equity if the underlying data is flawed,” Gonzalez said. “When the only data regulators have come from the providers themselves, the providers end up defining reality. Communities are then forced to prove they’re disconnected, without access to the same information the companies use to claim coverage.”

Cristal Mojica, digital equity expert at the Michelson Center for Public Policy, said pricing data is intentionally obscured.

“It makes it harder for people to shop around between internet plans,” Mojica told LAist. “It makes it really challenging for our state legislators to be effective and make effective decisions around affordability when they have to try to dig around for that information themselves.”

What’s next? 

California has already invested $6 billion for broadband –called the “Middle-Mile” project –through Senate Bill 156. The 2021 law is the largest state investment in broadband in U.S. history to get more people online.

Helderop explained that broadband investments are typically made possible through grants or loans to private telecom companies, making the state’s investment critical.

“It's the first time that any state, or any government in the United States, is taking it upon themselves to build and then own the infrastructure at the end of it,” Helderop said. “I would say that's probably the primary reason that we don't have universal broadband available to households in the United States right now.”

When completed, the “Middle-Mile” project will open markets to new providers and reduce monopolies, Helderop added.

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s widow, Crystal Hefner, is raising the alarm over her late husband’s foundation collecting about 3,000 of his personal scrapbooks and his diary, which she says contain thousands of nude images of women, some of whom might have been minors at the time the photos were taken.

In a press conference Tuesday, Hefner and her attorney, Gloria Allred, announced they’ve filed regulatory complaints with California and Illinois attorneys general, asking them to investigate the foundation’s handling of the scrapbooks. The complaints were filed to both attorneys general because the foundation is registered to do business in California but incorporated in Illinois.

“I believe they include women and possibly girls who never agreed to lifelong possession of their naked images and who have no transparency into where their photos are, how they’re being stored or what will happen to them next,” Hefner said.

She added the diary includes names of women he slept with, notes of sexual acts and other explicit details.

Hefner said she was asked to resign from her position as CEO and president of the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation on Monday after raising concerns about the materials. She said after she declined to resign, she was removed from her role.

She said she was told the scrapbooks may be in a storage facility in California. Allred says they were informed that the foundation plans to digitize them, but it’s unclear what it plans to do with them.

“This is not archival preservation. This is not history. This is control. I am deeply worried about these images getting out,” Hefner said. “Artificial intelligence, deepfakes, digital scanning, online marketplaces and data breaches means that once images leave secure custody, the harm is irreversible. A single security failure could devastate thousands of lives.”

In addition to asking for an investigation into the foundation’s handling of the materials, it also asks the attorneys general to take appropriate actions to secure those images.

LAist has reached out to the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation for comment.