It’s been more than 100 days since President Donald Trump took office. He vowed during the campaign to bring down food prices on day one, and while egg prices are finally falling, the cost of other consumer goods remains high.

Now $6 per pound, the average price of ground beef hit a record high for the third consecutive month, jumping 15 cents since March. The cost of electricity also remained at its peak in April, according to the latest data from the consumer price index.

Some good news? Egg prices are dropping from all-time highs. The average cost of eggs settled at $5.12 in April, declining roughly 18% from March.

Still, the cost of many goods and services has stayed much the same with the change of administrations. The price of milk, bread and chicken has moved very little since December.

Though many of these prices are not directly linked to the White House, they may soon be, with a burgeoning global trade war sure to affect average prices from the grocery store to the pump.

The Chicago Tribune is tracking 11 everyday costs for Americans — eggs, milk, bread, bananas, oranges, tomatoes, chicken, ground beef, gasoline, electricity and natural gas — and how they are changing (or not) under the second Trump administration. This tracker is updated monthly using CPI data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Eggs

Breakfast lovers, rejoice! Egg prices dropped for the first time in months.

In April, the average cost of a dozen large Grade A eggs was $5.12 nationwide — falling more than a dollar from the previous month. This is the first time egg prices have decreased since October, likely due to a declining number of bird flu cases in commercial and backyard flocks.

In February, there were approximately 12.6 million birds affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In March, that number was 2.1 million, and as of April, only 1 million U.S. birds were affected — with those cases primarily concentrated in two commercial flocks in South Dakota and Ohio.

Still, the cost of eggs remains about 24% higher than before Trump took office. But with the number of reported bird flu cases on the decline, experts expect egg prices will continue dropping into the summer months.

Milk

It’s not just poultry flocks and wild birds that have been affected by bird flu. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus has been reported in dairy cows since March 2024, and just last month, there were 48 new confirmed cases at dairy farms in California, Arizona and Idaho.

But while avian flu cases are declining in poultry, they’re rising in cattle. In April, the number of newly infected dairy cows was double that of March and represented the greatest number of cases reported in a single month since the start of the new calendar year.

So it may not come as a surprise that the cost of milk is increasing, though far from the volatile spikes seen in egg prices. The current average cost is only a 4 cent difference from January.

As of April, a gallon of fresh, fortified whole milk would set you back about $4.07.

Bread

According to the national average, white bread was about $1.91 per pound in April. Bread is priced about 4.3% less than it was 12 months ago.

Bananas

One item that hasn’t seen much fluctuation in recent years is bananas. The fruit’s price has remained reliably low — hovering at $0.64 per pound as of April.

Oranges

Orange prices are expected to steadily rise in the coming months. But don’t fret, because that is normal.

Like many citrus fruits, orange prices are heavily tied to the harvesting season. As we exit orange season, supplies will decrease, coinciding with an increase in demand, thus triggering higher prices. This is standard for the fruit market, with oranges being cheapest in the winter months, then increasing in cost throughout the spring and summer and eventually peaking in September or October each year.

Currently, the average cost per pound for navel oranges is $1.49 nationwide.

Tomatoes

In the U.S., the average price of field-grown tomatoes was $1.79 per pound as of April. That cost is slightly lower than it was the previous month and down roughly 13% since Trump took power.

This change, however, likely has little to do with the administration. Like oranges, tomato prices vary depending on the time of year, rising in the fall, peaking in the early winter months and then plummeting in the spring.

Chicken

The national average crested above $2 per pound for fresh, whole chicken for the first time last year and hit a record high of $2.08 in November. Since then, the average cost has been roughly the same. According to the latest CPI figures, chicken is $2.06 per pound.

Ground beef

Your next backyard cookout might be more expensive, with the cost of ground beef rising.

Prices spiked again from March to April, jumping nearly 2.5% to an all-time high, according to BLS data. The average price of 100% beef ground chuck is now $6 per pound — 15 cents more than the previous record set just last month.

This is likely due to a number of factors. In addition to several major ground beef recalls reported in recent months, the U.S. cattle inventory is at a 25-year low, and severe drought in parts of the country has further reduced the feed supply, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

More recently, in trade talks with the U.S., the United Kingdom agreed to buy more American beef, a deal that the president says will lead to greater exports. But as China and the European Union’s tariffs on beef and other U.S. farm exports remain, this may not be the last time we see record prices this year.

Perhaps this is the year to give vegetarianism a try?

Electricity

In April, the average price of electricity nationwide was 18 cents per kilowatt-hour. That average has remained more or less the same since May of last year, with the typical month-over-month changes registering at less than a fraction of a cent.

Even so, the current cost of electricity is the highest on record — going back more than 45 years.

Gasoline

The price at the pump is climbing again.

The cost of gas rose 10 cents month-over-month to $3.33 per gallon of regular unleaded, about a 6% increase from the last month of the Biden administration.

Nonetheless, prices remain about 12% lower than they were in April 2024, and markedly less than the jaw-dropping numbers many Americans saw three summers ago.

Natural gas

Piped utility gas, or natural gas, is another expense that’s creeping up.

Average prices nationwide sit at $1.63 per therm — the highest they’ve been in two years.

_____

©2025 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.