Groundwork Reacts to 2022 Profits Data

Groundwork on 2022 Profits Data: “Congress must take action to stop egregious corporate profiteering”

Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released new data showing that even as corporate profits – and inflation – have started to ease, total profits rose a whopping 10.42% from 2021. Groundwork Collaborative’s Chief Economist Rakeen Mabud reacted with the following statement:

“The evidence for corporate profiteering is overwhelming. Academics and Wall Street analysts have pointed to the major role excess profit-seeking has played in rising prices. Corporations took their price-hiking strategy to the bank, openly bragging about their ability to raise prices and pad their profits – all on the backs of struggling consumers.

“Chair Powell’s interest rate hiking bonanza can do nothing to address the scourge of corporate profiteering nor prevent corporations from continuing to jack up prices to boost their bottom line. Congress must take action to stop egregious corporate profiteering and protect consumers from bad corporate behavior.”

You can find all of Groundwork’s earnings call research at endcorporateprofiteering.org.

WHAT CORPORATE EXECUTIVES ARE SAYING:

• Colgate’s CEO said the company saw up to 15% price hikes over the past two years and “we have continued to take a lot of pricing and we will continue to see the benefits of that as we move into 2023.” [1/27/23]
• Kimberly-Clark’s CEO noted that they had hiked prices beyond the cost of inflation, saying “pricing exceeded input costs and inflation for the full year. So, we fully offset inflation…for the full year last year.” [1/25/23]
• Procter and Gamble’s CFO boasted that the company continued to see “more favorable elasticities than we would have expected on historical data,” despite 10% price increases. The company reported funneling $4.2 billion to investors in the past quarter, “approximately $2.2 billion in dividends and $2 billion in share repurchase.” [1/19/23]
• General Mills bragged to analysts that their ability to hike prices through different means had improved, saying “we have had success moving pricing through the market.” And there are more price hikes on the way, according to their CFO: “We’ve got another effective round of pricing coming through at the beginning of calendar year ’23.” [12/20/22]