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FUN FACT - In a world of rising grocery prices and ballooning government budgets, it’s always interesting to ask: What else could that money buy? And when it comes to the U.S. defense budget, the answer is—apparently—a whole bunch of eggs.
A Budget Bigger Than Breakfast
For fiscal year 2025, the United States defense budget clocks in at an estimated $850 billion. That number is so large, it's nearly impossible for most people to wrap their heads around it. So let's bring it down to earth, or rather, to the grocery store.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of March 2025, a dozen Grade A large eggs cost $6.23 on average in American cities. That breaks down to about $0.519 per egg.
Do the Math
Now, imagine redirecting the entire defense budget—not to weapons, bases, and military personnel—but to eggs.
Here’s what the math looks like:
- Defense Budget: $850,000,000,000
- Cost per Egg: $0.519
$850,000,000,000 ÷ $0.519 = ~1,637,554,585,152 eggs
That’s over 1.63 trillion eggs.
To put that in perspective:
- That’s enough eggs to give every person on Earth (roughly 8 billion people) over 200 eggs each.
- If laid end-to-end, those eggs would stretch well over 1.5 million miles—enough to circle the Earth 60 times.
- It's more than 2,000 eggs for every American citizen.
Why Eggs?
Eggs are a symbol of everyday affordability (or at least, they used to be). They’re one of the most basic grocery items, and when their price spikes, consumers feel it sharply. Using eggs as a metaphor makes it easier to understand the scale of the defense budget—something often left to spreadsheets and policy wonks.
It also raises questions about priorities. While no one is suggesting the Pentagon start hoarding cartons of eggs, the exercise does beg a few philosophical musings: How does government spending affect our daily lives? What opportunities exist when we think creatively about budgets?
Of Course, Defense Is Not Breakfast
Military spending and egg shopping are apples and oranges—er, eggs and ammo. National defense is a complex necessity in a turbulent world, requiring cutting-edge technology, global logistics, and a highly trained workforce. But comparisons like this serve an important purpose: they make us think.
Every dollar has power. And when we spend hundreds of billions of them, it’s worth asking not just how—but why.
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