Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is expected to announce plans to fight food inflation with a federal ban on price gouging on groceries, but how much this would help Americans is debatable, economists say.
Over the past few years, President Joe Biden’s administration has blamed corporate greed for the surge in inflation, and Harris is expected to take up that torch in a speech Friday in North Carolina’s capital city. Corporations raised prices when snarled supply chains during the pandemic created shortages of nearly everything, and just never stopped or lowered prices again after supply chains stabilized, they argue.
“Some companies are keeping prices high even though input costs are falling, and supply chains are back to normal,” the White House said in a news release in March.
If higher grocery prices are the result of potential mergers between larger supermarkets and food producers and corporate greed, Americans may benefit from Harris’ approach. However, many economists have their doubts such a policy would be effective for various reasons, including whether price gouging is the root of inflation at all.
Michael Ashton, managing principal at Enduring Investments LLC, who specializes in inflation analysis, questioned the existence of price gouging “in an industry as competitive as grocery.”
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“Why did the price gouging just start in 2021-22?” he asked. “Did grocers just not realize they had…
