During the pandemic, Corporate America jacked up prices on all kinds of consumer goods.

• From fresh fruits and vegetables to corn chips and breakfast cereal, from soup and soda pop to aluminum foil and toilet paper, prices seemed to go up with every trip to the grocery store.

• These price hikes were due in part to supply chain disruptions. But Big Business imposed price increases of their own on top of that.

• Meanwhile — not content just to raise prices — companies have also been reducing how much of their product we actually get in the package. This is known as “shrinkflation,” and it’s a trend we’ve been seeing for years.

• President Biden called out corporations for their sneaky and greedy shrinkflation tactics in his State of the Union Address last week.

• This all adds up: Federal Reserve data shows that from 2020 to 2022, corporate profits increased by 75%.

Big Business has been using supply chain issues that were temporary — and which have been resolved — as an excuse to charge us more and give us less. This is just straight-up price gouging.

And corporations inflating their profits at our expense isn’t even the end of the story here. There’s a dangerous political component as well. The understandable frustration with everyday prices has a lot of Americans doubting the strength of our economy — despite historically good news on an array of economic metrics. Right-wing politicians and propaganda outlets like Fox “News” are feeding and exploiting that doubt to promote their regressive policies.

A bill just introduced in Congress would give the Federal Trade Commission and each state’s attorney general the power to crack down on shrinkflation.

Tell Congress:

Corporate price gouging and shrinkflation are hurting American families every day and masking real progress with our nation’s economy. Pass the Shrinkflation Prevention Act of 2024, introduced by Senator Bob Casey, without delay.

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Thanks for taking action.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
 
 
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