No, the president does not control grocery prices

Inflation has fallen in the United States, but Americans are paying 25 percent more for groceries than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, according to government data.

Multiple Republican lawmakers and others on social media claim President Joe Biden and his economic policies are to blame for the grocery price increases.

VERIFY reader Stephanie sent us an email asking if the president controls grocery prices.

THE QUESTION

Does the president control grocery prices?

THE SOURCES

• U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (USDA ERS)
• U.S. Government Accountability Office
• The White House
• Groundwork Collaborative
• FMI, the Food Industry Association 
• National Grocers Association
• David Ortega, Ph.D., food economist and associate professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University
• Steve Reed, an economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Leslie Sarasin, president and CEO of FMI, The Food Industry Association
• Laura Strange, chief communications and engagement officer at the National Grocers Association

THE ANSWER

No, the president does not control grocery prices.

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WHAT WE FOUND

The president does not control grocery prices in the U.S. Instead, “prices generally are set by sellers, and price change typically comes from market forces,” according to Steve Reed, an economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Market forces are economic factors that influence the price and quantity of goods and services, driving supply and demand in a market.

“There is no direct control of food prices by the president or any branch of government,” Reed told VERIFY.

David Ortega, a food economist and associate professor at Michigan State University, agreed.

“The president doesn’t have control over food prices,” said Ortega. “Food prices are affected by shocks that are external. A lot of it comes down to market forces.”

A March 2023 report on food prices published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that not just one but multiple market forces can affect retail food prices. Some of the most recent factors include the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, global trade issues, weather events and climate change, as well as animal and plant diseases, such as the recent outbreak of avian (bird) flu, which “was partly responsible for the significant increases that we saw in egg prices,” according to Ortega.

“COVID-19 caused disruptions across the food supply chain. As U.S. households shifted away from full-service restaurant meals, they purchased more food at grocery stores. There were slowdowns in production at meat processing plants when workers became sick and plants shut down. Similarly, transportation of food was bottlenecked when truck drivers got sick,” the GAO wrote in an April 2023 blog post.

“The war in Ukraine also disrupted the global supply of agricultural commodities—such as wheat, corn, sunflower oil, and fertilizer. This reduction in supply, coupled with a U.S. drought, caused American consumers to see wheat prices increase,” the GAO added.

In February 2024, Groundwork Collaborative, a nonprofit think-tank and progressive advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., published a report titled “What’s Driving the Rise in Grocery Prices – and What the Government Can Do About It.”

Similar to the GAO report, Groundwork Collaborative found that grocery prices have risen faster than the rate of inflation since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic due to a host of factors, including climate-related supply shocks, supply chain disruptions impacting citrus fruit and sugar production, and corporate profiteering in the meat, beverage and snack food industries.

While the president does not have direct control over food prices, Ortega, Reed and the GAO all said certain government policies can indirectly influence the market forces that affect prices.

One recent example of a government policy that may have influenced grocery prices were the economic impact payments or stimulus checks sent to millions of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Reed.

“Mailing checks to people increases the amount of disposable money they have and so they tend to buy more things; so that increases demand, which could have upward pressure on pricing,” Reed explained.

The Biden administration has been urging corporations and major grocery chains to lower costs for American consumers for months.

“There are still too many corporations in America ripping people off: price gouging, junk fees, greedflation, shrinkflation. Well, it’s going to stop,” Biden said in January at South Carolina's First in the Nation dinner. “Americans, we’re tired of being played for suckers. And that’s why we’re going to keep on them and get the prices down.”

VERIFY reached out to FMI, the Food Industry Association, a national trade group that represents supermarkets like Albertsons and Kroger, two of the largest grocery chains in the U.S.

In a statement, Leslie Sarasin, president and CEO of FMI, told VERIFY that “no one person or entity is responsible for the myriad inflationary factors that have driven up prices.” She listed persistently high labor costs, ever-increasing interchange fees for credit card payments and continuous supply chain challenges as factors affecting prices.

Independent grocery stores are facing similar challenges, according to Laura Strange, spokesperson for the National Association of Grocers, a national trade association that represents independent retail and wholesale grocers in the U.S.

“As we’ve seen across the economy, price increases are driven by a perfect storm of factors, including inflation, rising product costs driven by supply chain pressures, a nationwide labor shortage, and increases in costs for inputs such as energy and commodity ingredients,” Strange said in an email.

Ortega and Groundwork Collective both say there are additional measures the government could pursue to reduce the risk of future grocery price hikes.

In its recent report, Groundwork Collective encouraged the government to carefully scrutinize anticompetitive mergers throughout the food supply chain, finalize regulations to promote competition in the meatpacking industry, and reinstate and make food assistance expansions, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), previously known as food stamps, permanent.

“We have to really address the underlying factors that are contributing to food price increases. Simply calling out retailers or food companies isn’t going to do much and that’s because it’s market forces that are behind these food price increases themselves,” said Ortega. “Now, it’s not going to hurt the situation but ultimately, that’s not going to be responsible for bringing food prices down.”

Shoppers have increasingly been pushing back against high grocery prices by shifting away from name brands to store-brand items, switching to discount stores or simply buying fewer items. This consumer resistance has led some large food companies, such as PepsiCo, to respond by slowing their price increases from the peaks seen in the past three years. However, this doesn’t mean grocery prices will fall back to what they were a few years ago.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

This story is also available in Spanish / Lee este artículo también en español: No, el presidente no controla los precios de los alimentos