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The Biden administration said Wednesday it plans to take “bold action” to enforce antitrust laws aimed at meatpacking companies it says are causing beef, pork, and poultry prices to rise at the grocery store.
Even though beef prices have been rising, farmers and ranchers have been making less money, the White House said.
Climate change, labor issues, transportation concerns and other supply chain disruptions have been contributing to the rising costs over the past several years. The pandemic disruptions then sped up the rate of growth in prices.
These price increases have significant consequences for the most vulnerable Americans. The United States Department of Agriculture reported Wednesday that 13.8 million households were considered food insecure in 2020.
The Biden administration last month increased assistance for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Previously known as Food Stamps, the benefits were increased by more than 25%.
“It’s a combination of all these factors,” SuperMarketGuru.com editor Phil Lempert said. “It’s very difficult to say what did the pandemic do? What does climate change do? What is transportation do? So we’ve got to lump it all together. And we’ve got to solve them all together.”
Watch the video above to learn how much food prices have increased, why the costs are rising and what we can do about it.