Have you noticed that the price of eggs has gone up? You’re not imagining things. According to the USDA, egg prices are up 6.2% over the last year as of November 2014, which are the latest available numbers.

We have some bad news for you; Eggs will only become more expensive, and you can thank California voters for that. According to the Huffington Post, California voters passed new animal welfare laws requiring that hens be housed with enough room to stretch their wings and move around.

The new year is expected to bring rising chicken egg prices across the U.S. as California starts requiring farmers to house hens in cages with enough space to move around and stretch their wings.

The new standard backed by animal rights advocates has drawn ire nationwide because farmers in Iowa, Ohio and other states who sell eggs in California have to abide by the same requirements.

To comply, farmers have to put fewer hens into each cage or invest in revamped henhouses, passing along the expense to consumers shopping at grocery stores. California is the nation’s largest consumer of eggs and imports about one-third of its supply.

California is the largest consumer of eggs in the country, and imports one-third of its supply. The California legislature passed a law in 2010 that made out of state producers comply with the initiative if they wanted to export their eggs into California.

Instead of raising the price of eggs for all Americans, Californians had other alternatives, such as seeking out producers who were already producing eggs humanely.

With free markets, consumers choose and win. With government mandates, most often, consumers lose.

http://www.ijreview.com/2015/01/226320-h...nsive-new-year/