By JOSH BOAK (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is going all-in on calling out “shrinkflation.”
The term applies to a seemingly covert way for companies to raise prices by ever so slightly reducing the size of their products. There’s suddenly fewer pretzels in the bag, less toothpaste in the tube and shorter candy bars.
“It’s called shrinkflation,” Biden said in his State of the Union speech on Thursday night. “You get charged the same amount and you got about, I don’t know, 10% fewer Snickers in it.”
The president’s focus on shrinkflation is part of a broader strategy to reframe how voters think about the economy before the November election. Biden is trying to deflect criticism about high prices and instead pin the blame on big business.
He also is attempting to show everyday people that he’s fighting for them as he struggles to convince the public that the economy has strengthened under his leadership.
He talked about the shrinkflation issue in a video released on Super Bowl Sunday and highlighted a social media post by the “Sesame Street” character Cookie Monster that complained about smaller cookies.
The country’s low 3.7% unemployment rate and record 16 million applications to start new businesses have largely been overlooked by voters, who are dwelling on higher grocery and housing prices after inflation struck a four-decade high in June 2022 at 9.1%. Even as inflation has drifted down to 3.1% annually, shoppers are still worried about paying a premium at supermarkets.
“Joe Biden recognizes that high grocery prices are an ‘Achilles Heel’ politically,” said Ryan Bourne, an economist at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “When consumers are going into the grocery store, they remember that they’re paying more than they did in 2019.”
But Bourne cautioned that, in the alternative, companies might have simply raised their list prices without shrinkflation, possibly…
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