Families in New York and across the country are being forced to make hard choices: which food items to cut to bring down their grocery bill, which bills and credit cards to pay off, and how to make do with less while paying more. This is the sad economic reality facing many families and while everyday folks are struggling to make ends meet, big corporations are racking in record profits. It should not have to be this way.
Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris laid out a strong economic vision for the country with an important centerpiece: combatting price gouging. Vice President Harris’ economic plan includes the first-ever federal ban on price gouging of food and groceries, a critical step in cracking down on unfairly high prices.
Tackling price gouging is an effective and smart approach to stop corporations from taking advantage of consumers and unfairly raising prices. I know this because New York has one of the strongest price gouging statutes in the country and my office has not been afraid to use it to stop corporate greed and protect consumers.
Price gouging refers to the unfair practice of increasing prices of essential goods and services during abnormal market disruptions, like nationwide shortages or emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or severe weather events. National shortages, due to the pandemic and other supply chain issues, as well as severe weather events have been a regular occurrence lately and corporations have used them as excuses to raise prices. However, when my office uncovers these illegal actions, we work tirelessly to hold the bad actors accountable.
Take, for example, the national shortage of baby formula in 2022. My office heard from many frustrated parents who were going store to store and aisle by aisle trying to find food for their babies. When parents were finally able to find formula on shelves, they reported astronomically high prices that were double, sometimes triple, the normal cost of baby formula.
My office began investigating and found that Walgreens was illegally using the national baby formula shortage to raise prices, forcing parents to pay outrageous amounts to feed their children. Some parents reported that one can of baby formula, which previously cost between $40 and $45, was being sold for $129.
Walgreens’ actions were unconscionable, and my office took swift action against the company, securing more than 9,500 cans of baby formula, worth roughly $200,000, that we delivered to families in New York City and Western New York.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as egg prices were getting unimaginably high, we uncovered that Hillandale Farms was price gouging, and we held them accountable by securing and delivering 1.2 million eggs to New Yorkers. We also secured $100,000 from a wholesale grocery and drug distributor, Quality King, for unfairly jacking up the prices of Lysol cleaning supplies when New Yorkers needed it most to stay safe and healthy.
Hearing directly from New Yorkers who are seeing high prices at their bodega or grocery store has been a critical tool for my office when addressing price gouging. These reports to my office help us go after bad actors and I ask that New Yorkers continue to report unconscionably high prices to my office.
While I am proud of the work we have done to tackle price gouging, I know there is more to do to protect consumers from outrageously high prices. That is why my office is working together with advocates, trade groups, and economic experts on new rules to strengthen New York’s price gouging statute. The new rules will help us go even further to make sure companies do not take advantage of catastrophes to illegally raise prices.
Protecting New Yorkers from price gouging is a duty I take seriously, and I vow to continue using every tool at my disposal to combat corporate price gouging. We know that when we tackle price gouging, we help working families, and I applaud Vice President Harris for making this a priority.
Letitia Ann James is a Brooklyn resident, lawyer and politician serving since 2019 as the Attorney General of New York. A member of the Democratic Party, James is the first African American and first woman to be elected New York Attorney General
