Maybe this is the left’s stealth plan to kill off Chick-Fil-A.
The chickens of a bad policy often come home to roost. Joe Biden’s extreme spending spree — $6 trillion in just 100 days by the New York Times’ count — and Green New Deal (branding lazily borrowed from a project that didn’t even work the first time, by the way) anti-American energy policies are causing inflation if not hyperinflation.
The chickens are coming home to roost, with a higher price tag.
Chicken producers are crimped by a labor shortage, and inflation is making its way through the entire bird. Fast-casual chain Wingstop saw bone-in wing prices rise 25.8% in its first quarter, which was considerably lower than the market-rate increase of 50%. (Company executives said they were able to negotiate lower prices with suppliers.)
“You’re actually seeing inflation in all parts of the bird, not just wings,” Wingstop Chief Financial Officer Michael Skipworth told Yahoo Finance Live.
There are poultry producers who are having trouble staffing their plants at 100%, he said. “We really believe that has to do with the pressure on the labor market and the amount of stimulus that’s enabling people not to have to go out and work, and claim these open jobs that are available to them,” he added.
I just got an air fryer. Wings cooked in it are the best wings I have ever had. But now they’ll cost more. Thanks, Joe!
This price hike isn’t just about the wings. It’s about the whole bird.
Meanwhile, chicken and pork producer Pilgrim’s Pride is acutely feeling the labor shortage. This week the company, controlled by Brazil’s JBS, reported sales rose 6.5% last quarter. But it’s shelling out $40 million in wage increases this year to attract and retain workers, targeting a shortage that’s the result of “the stimulus payment, income tax refunds, and … unemployment benefits,” Pilgrim’s Pride CEO Fabio Sandri said on the conference call.
We didn’t even need that last stimulus. We needed to reopen the economy and let people work again. That’s all the stimulus needed. We had the best economy in living memory before the pandemic wrecked everything. It would be reasonable to look at the policies that led to that economy and reimplement them.
But watch Biden say we need even more illegal migrants to take these jobs “Americans won’t do” because he’s paying them not to do those jobs. Would you rather Netflix and chill or butcher birds?
Biden has never held a real job and doesn’t know how the economy works.
Or he does, and he’s knowingly causing inflation of the whole dadgum chicken, plus lumber, gas (which is about to get worse thanks to a shortage of qualified tanker truck drivers), and numerous products we use every day.
Take your pick, Biden voters. Either Joe Biden doesn’t know what he’s doing…or he does. Same goes for the border while we’re at it. And his failure to reopen schools.
Biden’s attitude on policy is typical of a government lifer: no matter what worked before, toss it all out just because it wasn’t your policy.
Whether Biden actually knows what he’s doing or not, you’re paying more for chicken and just about everything else. Pretty soon we’ll all be using Bitcoin to buy lumber to trade for Buffalo wings — supposing our dollars are even worth enough to purchase any of the three.
Parting note:
Pilgrim’s Pride also has another solution to the problem: robots. The company plans to spend $100 million over the next year to further automate operations, with the potential to reduce its necessary workforce by 5,600 positions, Sandri said in the call.
Welp.
What effect might the left’s drive to artificially hike the minimum wage have on things?
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