Anyone craving the all-day breakfast at Waffle House will have to shell out an extra 50 cents for each egg in their omelet or scrambled eggs, the restaurant chain said Monday.

Waffle House said in a statement that the temporary surcharge, which went into effect the same day, was being added to address the rising cost of eggs resulting from the bird flu.

The “continuing egg shortage” caused by highly pathogenic bird flu “has caused a dramatic increase in egg prices,” Waffle House said in the statement. “Consumers and restaurants are being forced to make difficult decisions.”

Grocery stores and restaurants are now paying around $7.79 for a dozen Midwest large eggs, the industry standard, up from $3.33 a year ago, according to Expana, a firm that collects and tracks the price of eggs. At that price, each egg would cost about 65 cents.

Waffle House, which was founded in 1955 and now has more than 1,900 locations in 25 states, serves more than 272 million eggs a year, according to the company’s website. The chain, which is based in Georgia, said that rather than increase prices across its menu, the surcharge was “temporarily targeted.”

For many consumers, the price of eggs has become a tangible barometer of the economy and the rising cost of food in the United States. Shoppers who have come to rely on eggs as a traditionally inexpensive protein source have lamented about the high prices — about 37% higher last month than a year earlier — and empty grocery store shelves where eggs used to be plentiful.

The cost of eggs has also been a political talking point. Donald Trump complained about the high price of eggs when he was running for president last year. Earlier this month, Brooke Rollins, Trump’s nominee for secretary of agriculture, said that one of her top priorities was to “immediately and comprehensively get a handle on animal disease outbreaks.”

Egg prices are rising because of inflation as well as the bird flu, which made its way to the United States in 2022 after it was detected in Canada. To date, the disease has infected or killed almost 150 million birds. But the situation has gotten worse in the last few months. More than 30 million chickens have recently been killed to prevent the spread of disease, and experts say it could take months before the supply of egg-laying chickens stabilizes.

In the meantime, Waffle House has added stickers to its menus informing customers about the surcharge, according to CNN, while emphasizing that eggs will remain a staple of its food.

“As long as they are available, quality, fresh-cracked, Grade-A large eggs will remain a key ingredient in many of our customers’ favorite meals,” Waffle House said.

— New York Times

Job openings signal cooling labor market

U.S. job openings fell in December, a sign that the labor market is cooling but still healthy.

Openings fell to 7.6 million, from 8.2 million in November, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. They were down from 8.9 million a year earlier and a peak of 12.2 million in March 2022 when the economy was rebounding from COVID-19 lockdowns. The openings fell short of the 7.9 million that economists had expected.

The number of layoffs fell, suggesting that Americans enjoy unusual job security. The number of people quitting their jobs rose modestly but stayed below pre-pandemic levels. After surging in 2021 and 2022, quits have come down as workers lose confidence in their ability to find better pay or working conditions elsewhere.

The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS) showed professional and businesses services companies – a broad category that includes managers and technical workers — scaled back their job postings. Openings also fell in healthcare and social assistance and finance and insurance but ticked higher in arts, entertainment and recreation.

Fox to venture into streaming market

Fox Corp. has largely stayed out of the streaming wars, but that’s about to change.

Fox Corp. Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch told Wall Street analysts Tuesday that his company will launch a direct-to-consumer streaming product that will draw on its news and sports assets.

Murdoch offered no details on a name or pricing for the service, which he said would be launched by the end of the year. He said the plan should not be taken as a sign that the company would abandon the traditional pay TV business.

— From news services