Price gouging has reemerged as an issue in the 2024 presidential election after the topic was brought up during a court hearing on a possible merger between Kroger and Albertsons.
“We knew it, they said it,” Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) wrote in a statement on X. “Kroger’s caught admitting to price gouging folks—using power to raise grocery prices higher than inflation to pad profits. Corporate power is out of control: we’ve got to keep fighting back to bring down costs.”
Deluzio was referring to Tuesday’s court testimony by Andy Groff, Kroger’s senior director for pricing. Groff testified in a Portland federal court hearing as part of the U.S. government’s efforts to challenge the company’s proposed merger with supermarket rival Albertsons.
Groff had reportedly acknowledged in an internal company email that Kroger had raised prices more than necessary to account for inflation, as reported by Newsweek. “On milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation,” Groff said in the email.
In a statement issued earlier this year, Kroger maintained that prices had been reduced yearly since 2003.
“Kroger has a proven track record of lowering prices so more customers benefit from fresh, affordable food, and our proposed merger with Albertsons will mean even lower prices and more choices for America’s consumers,” according to its February 2024 statement addressing the Federal Trade Commission’s decision to try and block Kroger’s proposed merger with Albertsons.
The company also said that its business model of keeping prices low applies to merger companies.
Price Gouging: Harris vs Trump
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris earlier this month proposed a federal ban on price gouging as part of her economic agenda to lower the cost of living for Americans.
“We all know that prices went up during the pandemic when the supply chains shut down and failed,” Harris said in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Aug. 16. “But our supply chains have now improved and prices are still too high.”
The Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, criticized Harris for calling for price controls and has described her plan to tackle price gouging as “Soviet-style” controls.
“After causing catastrophic inflation … [she has] announced that she wants to institute socialist price controls,” Trump told supporters during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Aug. 24.
Price Gouging Patterns
The issue of price gouging isn’t new.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in June 2023, signed the first-in-the-nation law on gas price gouging.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a major egg supplier during the COVID-19 pandemic “for taking unfair advantage of the Governor’s COVID-19 disaster declaration and raising the price of eggs by around 300 percent without any supply issues or significant disruptions.”
Earlier this year, U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) reintroduced the Price Gouging Prevention Act of 2024.
“Price gouging is harming consumers and is fueling the elevated profit margins among greedy corporations,” Schakowsky said in a statement. “We live in the richest country in the world at the richest moment in history. Yet, many Americans are unable to feel the full magnitude of our wealth.”
The bill would authorize the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to enforce a federal ban against grossly excessive price increases.