President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) are blaming corporate America for "shrinkflation," where a company charges the same amount for a product while reducing the product's size or quantity. Recently, Senator Bob Casey (D–Pa.) introduced the Shrinkflation Prevention Act, which declares shrinkflation a deceptive business practice and would forbid companies to engage in it.
Casey, Biden, Warren, and other like-minded politicians maintain that the underlying cause of shrinkflation is "greed." But, as Andrew Heaton explains, greed is pretty much constant across industries and time periods. Shrinkflation is just a passive-aggressive form of inflation, which we are struggling with largely due to government fiscal policy.
Photo credit: captcreate, Flickr; Brett Jordan, Flickr.
- Andrew Heaton: Host, Writer
- Austin Bragg: Producer, Editor
- Meredith Bragg: Producer
- John Carter: Producer