Harris Plans to Ban Grocery ‘Price Gouging.’ What Does the Evidence Say?

The New York Times ^ | Aug. 15, 2024Updated Aug. 16, 2024, 6:57 a.m. ET | Jim Tankersley and Jeanna Smialek

[E. Pluribus Unum]

In detailing her presidential campaign’s economic agenda, Vice President Kamala Harris will highlight an argument that blames corporate price gouging for high grocery prices.

That message polls well with swing voters. It has been embraced by progressive groups, which regularly point to price gouging as a driver of rapid inflation, or at least something that contributes to rapid price increases. Those groups cheered the announcement late Wednesday that Ms. Harris will call for a federal ban on corporate price gouging on groceries in an economic policy speech on Friday.

But the economic argument over the issue is complicated.

Economists have cited a range of forces for pushing up prices in the recovery from the pandemic recession, including snarled supply chains, a sudden shift in consumer buying patterns, and the increased customer demand fueled by stimulus from the government and low rates from the Federal Reserve. Most economists say those forces are far more responsible than corporate behavior for the rise in prices in that period.

Biden administration economists have found that corporate behavior has played a role in pushing up grocery costs in recent years — but that other factors have played a much larger one.

The Harris campaign announcement cited meat industry consolidation as a driver of excessive grocery prices, but officials did not immediately respond on Thursday to questions about the evidence Ms. Harris would cite or how her proposal would work.

[chuckee]

The supermarket industry is very competitive with low profit margins per item. They all sell the same products. Simple fact of the matter is there is NO price gouging in the industry because if there was that supermarket franchise would be out of business. This is all on Biden and Harris. No amount of Times misdirection is going to get them off the hook

[cld51860]

Heels Up’s own father wrote extensively about the glories of central planning, and how every country should be doing it.

The apple does not fall far…

[Cobra64]

These clowns should understand there is no such thing in a free market.

[oldtech]

I remember the Carter price & wage controls when he was president. My wages were controlled, but prices....not so much.

[oldtech]

We as consumers most likely do not know what is added at each step after an item leaves the manufacturer so how are we to know who is doing the gouging?

[unread]

I would wager that it's the government that's doing all the gouging.. Higher taxes, environmental nit-picking, higher tariffs on imported goods, increased kickbacks and blackmail, slowdown in engineering and manufacturing due to DEI, not enforcing the laws against theft, etc, etc....

The Government is "micro managing" us to death.. :(

[bert]

No, as always, Kamela is a California democrat and anti business to the bone.

Business is the enemy of the people