Groundwork Responds to Today’s CPI Data

Today’s Consumer Price Index shows year-over-year inflation increased to 6.8%. Groundwork’s Chief Economist Rakeen Mabud responded with the following statement:

“Rising prices are the direct result of decades of disinvestment in our supply chains and permissiveness toward corporate extraction that has weakened our economy’s responsiveness to crises. To tackle inflation, we need to focus on the real culprit behind rising prices: reining in corporate greed and investing in an economy that works for all of us.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak to an expert on one of the driving factors of rising prices: mega-corporations with massive market power. Below is a sampling of reporting on recent price hikes that got it right: 

• The American Prospect: Fighting the Inflation Profiteers. But there’s something else mixed in with this latest bout of inflation. Companies aren’t just passing costs onto us. With corporations using inflation as a cover for raising their prices, you and I are passing profits onto companies. [11/24/21]
• Truthout: Raising the Standard of Living for Everyone Could Offset the Pains of Inflation. Big business is simply milking this opportunity to claim that they need to raise their prices while they use those profits to engage in stock buybacks — which benefit shareholders and CEOs, not small farmers or the grocers who stock the shelves. [11/26/21]
• Bloomberg: Fattest Profits Since 1950 Debunk Wage-Inflation Story of CEOs. “Workers may be tired of seeing the fruits of their labor go to corporations making record-breaking earnings,” Chris Rhomberg, a professor of sociology at Fordham University, said at that point. “The Deere workers evidently felt that the company could afford more.” [11/30/21]
• The Daily Poster: Six Things They’re Not Telling You About Inflation. Perhaps the most important point being overlooked by the corporate media is that inflation is being driven by the greed and power of wealthy people and corporations. [12/6/21]
• Politico: Morning Money. The Next Inflation Culprit: Big Business. Another alleged culprit you can expect to hear more about in 2022 — profiteering corporations. Progressives have been urging the White House to lean harder on big business to keep prices in check, aiming in part to quell voters’ inflation angst before the midterm elections and deflect blame from the president. [12/10/21]

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Groundwork Collaborative: The Groundwork Collaborative’s mission is to advance an economic vision for strong, broadly shared prosperity and true opportunity for all. Visit our website and follow us on Twitter @Groundwork.