Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris called for a federal ban on price gouging on food and grocery products, just a few days before the Democratic National Convention (DNC) was slated to kick off today and formally name her as the Democrats’ lead candidate for the 2024 Presidential Election.
In the days since, food industry groups — particularly those in the meat and poultry industries, which have been specific targets of current President Joe Biden, Harris and the current administration — have panned the concept as potentially more harmful to consumers than helpful.
The Meat Institute released a statement from president and CEO Julie Anna Potts saying a federal ban of this type “does not address the real causes of inflation,” and that “major meat companies have reported losses during the Biden-Harris Administration, with some closing facilities and laying off workers.”
The National Chicken Council (NCC) echoed some of those sentiments, with NCC interim president Gary Kushner pointing out that “Americans are seeing inflation in nearly every part of their livelihoods – rent, gas, automobiles, furniture – not just in the meat case.” Kushner then called on the administration “to stop using the meat and poultry industry as a scapegoat and a distraction for the root causes of inflation and the significant challenges facing our economy.”
Food industry groups weren’t the only ones saying the Harris campaign’s proposal misses the mark. Newsweek carried a story in which several economists offered reasoning why the potential ban was off. Glynn Tonsor, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University, for one, told the publication just because prices are higher than they’d been didn’t mean consumers were being gouged — the cost of producing the food has gone up as well, he noted.
Luis Cabral, a professor of economics at New York University, told Newsweek that he didn’t understand what this potential federal ban would actually do, given that many states already have such laws, he said.
Meanwhile, Gavin Roberts, the chair of Weber State University’s economics department, told CNN that although Harris said the proposed ban would help the industry become more competitive, he believes it would actually be more likely to maintain the status quo by making it more difficult for new companies to enter the market and pull prices down.
