A former top economist in the Obama administration poured cold water on Vice President Kamala Harris' economic plan to combat price-gouging at grocery stores.
While year-over-year inflation has dropped to its lowest level in more than three years, food prices remain stubbornly high — 21 percent above where they were in 2021.
Harris on Friday proposed a federal ban on price-gouging in the food industry.
“My plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules,” Harris said at a campaign event, according to CNN.
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Harvard University economist Jason Furman, who served in the Obama administration, told The New York Times, "Egg prices went up last year — it’s because there weren’t as many eggs, and it caused more egg production.”
Laws targeting price gouging could backfire on consumers, he said.
“This is not sensible policy, and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality,” he said. “There’s no upside here, and there is some downside.”
Gavin Roberts, chair of Weber State University’s economics department who studied anti-price gouging laws passed during the pandemic, told CNN that in many places, people were incentivized to "buy goods more than they would if prices had risen.”
Harris' proposal, he said, is "more likely to maintain that status quo” as it could prevent new competitors from entering the market.
