Inflation hit a 40-year high last year, and while inflation has slowed and even declined in recent months, consumers are still shelling out more than usual for their groceries.
Cheddar News correspondent Shannon LaNier visited a store in New Rochelle, New York, just north of New York City, to take a look at the price tags for common items, and found that one of the costlier sections of the grocery store these days is the dairy aisle.
"The price increases are coming every week, especially on eggs," said Jose Felipe, store manager of Rochelle Farms. He added that potato-based products are also seeing higher prices.
"French fries, for example, are in short supply and also very expensive," he said.
While the consumer price index declined 0.1 percent in December, food prices were up 0.3 percent month-over-month and 10.4 percent year-over-year. Eggs, meanwhile, saw some of the biggest gains in the whole index, rising nearly 60 percent year-over-year.
Producers have generally blamed the forced culling of millions of chickens in response to an avian flu outbreak. Others, however, say industry collusion is the biggest factor.
Farmer-led advocacy group Farm Action sent a letter urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) "to promptly open an investigation into the egg industry, prosecute any violations of the antitrust laws it finds within, and ultimately, get the American people their money back.”
The group said the price increases were the result of a "collusive scheme among industry leaders to turn inflationary conditions and an avian flu outbreak into an opportunity to extract egregious profits reaching as high as 40 percent."
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
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