Politics

Archived version

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to tackle price gouging by corporations in her campaign, much to the enthusiasm of progressives who are counting on Harris to do more than Biden has done to combat food inflation.

Last week, Harris told a campaign rally in Atlanta that she would “take on price gouging and bring down costs” on “Day One” of her presidency.

That promise comes a few months after Biden called out so-called “shrinkflation” — the phenomenon of items shrinking in size, quantity, or, even, quality while their prices remain the same — during his annual State of the Union address to Congress. “Too many corporations raise prices to pad the profits, charging more and more for less and less,” the president said. He also joked about the candy bar Snickers, saying they are now smaller in size but available for the same price.

“The snack companies think you won’t notice if they change the size of the bag and put a hell of a lot fewer — same size bag — put fewer chips in it,” Biden added.

The president previously called out shrinkflation in anticipation of the Super Bowl and asked companies to “put a stop to this” in a game day commercial.

“I've had enough of what they call shrinkflation,” he said. “It's a rip-off.