Harris zeroes in on high food and housing prices as inflation plays a big role in the campaign

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Harris zeroes in on high food and housing prices as inflation plays a big role in the campaign

2024-08-16 08:05 Last Updated At：08:11

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is zeroing in on high food and housing prices as her campaign previews an economic policy speech Friday in North Carolina, promising to push for a federal ban on price gouging on groceries and laying out plans to cut other costs as she looks to address one of voters' top concerns.

Year-over-year inflation has reached its lowest level in more than three years, but food prices are 21% above where they were three years ago. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pointed to inflation as a key failing of the Biden administration.

The cost of housing is another major driver of inflation, and Harris plans to use federal resources to promote the construction of 3 million new housing units if elected, pass legislation to slow rent increases, and provide a $25,000 in down-payment assistance for first time homebuyers.

Harris is drawing closer to President Joe Biden's legislative and economic record, casting her initiatives as an extension of the work their administration has done over the last three and a half years.

The Harris housing plan includes establishing a tax credit for homebuilders who construct starter homes for first-time homebuyers, and doubling a $20 billion Biden administration “innovation fund” for housing construction. The down-payment assistance would significantly expand on a Biden proposal to provide federal support to first-time buyers.

Earlier Thursday, Biden and Harris celebrated their efforts to cut prescription drug prices at an event in Maryland as she made her first joint speaking appearance with Biden since she replaced him at the top of the Democratic ticket nearly four weeks ago.

They announced that drug price negotiations will knock hundreds of dollars — in some cases thousands — off the list prices of 10 of Medicare’s most popular and costliest drugs. The program was created through the 2022 health care- and climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act. Harris’ vote Senate vote, as vice president, helped Democrats overcome unanimous GOP opposition to make the bill law.

“The tiebreaking vote of Kamala," Biden told the audience, “made that possible.”

He added that Harris is “gonna make one helluva president."

Biden undertook his own efforts to contain rising food prices, including creating a “competition council” that tried to reduce costs by increasing competition within the meat industry, part of a broader effort to show his administration is trying to combat inflation.

Asked Thursday if he was concerned Harris would seek to distance herself from his economic record, Biden told reporters, “She’s not going to."

Americans are more likely to trust Trump over Harris when it comes to handling the economy, but the difference is slight: 45% say Trump is better positioned to handle the economy, while 38% say that about Harris. About 1 in 10 trust neither Harris nor Trump to better handle the economy, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

Trump, speaking Thursday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, argued Harris is proposing “communist price controls” that would lead to shortages, hunger and more inflation. He was flanked by popular grocery store items as he sought to highlight the rising cost of food.

Harris, in her housing plan, also wants to crack down on data-sharing and price-setting tools that landlords to set rents, and to remove a tax incentive that has led investment firms to purchase wide swaths of the country’s housing stock. She intends to contrast her plan with Trump, who was sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination five decades ago.

Consumer confidence surveys show that high prices remain a persistent source of frustration for shoppers, particularly among lower-income Americans, even as inflation has cooled. Overall prices are about 21% higher than before the pandemic. Average incomes have risen by slightly more than that, boosting spending even as Americans report a gloomy outlook on the economy.

Some meat prices have risen by even more than overall inflation: Beef prices have increased nearly 33% in the 4 1/2 years since the pandemic began, while chicken prices have jumped 31%. Pork is 21% more expensive, according to government data.

Supply disruptions during the pandemic were one reason prices rose. Many meat processing plants closed temporarily after COVID-19 outbreaks among their workers.

But the Biden administration has charged that corporate consolidation in the meat processing industry has played a larger role by enabling a small number of companies to raise their prices by more than their their costs.

Four large companies control 55% to 85% of the beef, chicken, and poultry markets, the White House said in late 2021, including Tyson Foods and JBS. Several of the biggest meat companies have collectively paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to settle lawsuits accusing them of fixing prices for chicken, beef and pork, but they didn’t admit any wrongdoing.

Some economists have argued that large food and consumer goods companies took advantage of pandemic-era disruptions. Economist Isabella Weber at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, called it “seller’s inflation.” Others referred to it as “greedflation.”

Harris’ proposals on price gouging come as there is some evidence that “sellers’ inflation” is fading. Consumers have become more discriminating, and are passing on some higher-price purchases while seeking out cheaper alternatives.

Grocery prices, on average nationwide, have risen just 1.1% in the past 12 months, in line with pre-pandemic increases, the government said Wednesday.

The meat industry has been fending off allegations of price gouging and price fixing for years, and the major players dispute the notion that the extreme consolidation in the industry is to blame for high prices.

Kansas State University agricultural economist Glynn Tonsor said “the cost of raising the animal, the cost of converting it into meat, and the cost of getting that meat to people is higher than it was.”

“Yes, consumers are seeing higher prices, but it doesn’t necessarily mean somebody is gouging them,” Tonsor said.

The head of the Meat Institute trade group, President and CEO Julie Anna Potts, said Harris’ idea would not solve the problems of inflation driving up the price of everything.

“Consumers have been impacted by high prices due to inflation on everything from services to rent to automobiles, not just at the grocery store,” Potts said. “A federal ban on price gouging does not address the real causes of inflation.”

AP Business Writers Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, and Chris Rugaber in Washington, and Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Largo, Maryland, contributed to this report.

Central Europe flooding leaves 16 dead in Romania, Poland, Czech Republic and Austria

2024-09-17 14:54 Last Updated At：15:00

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Exceptionally heavy rainfall pounding Central Europe has prompted deadly flooding in the region, with four new deaths reported Monday in Poland, three in the Czech Republic and one in Romania.

The flooding has swamped parts of Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania as a low-pressure system crossing the region has unleashed record-high rains for days, and it was expected to affect Slovakia and Hungary later in the week. So far 16 people have been reported killed — seven people in Romania, five in Poland, three in the Czech Republic and one in Austria.

In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk held an emergency meeting and later declared a disaster in flooded areas, a government measure to facilitate evacuation and rescues. He also said the government would provide 1 billion zlotys ($260 million) in immediate payouts to victims.

The flooding in Poland has burst dams and embankments while receding waters left streets covered in piles of debris and mud. It prompted a hospital in the southwestern Polish city of Nysa to evacuate about 40 patients.

Schools and offices in the affected areas were closed Monday and drinking water and food were being delivered by trucks. Many Polish cities, including Warsaw, have called for food donations for flood survivors.

Experts warned of flood threats due to the cresting Oder River in Opole, a city of some 130,000 residents, and Wroclaw, home to about 640,000 residents and where disastrous flooding happened in 1997.

Firefighters in southwestern Poland said flood victims included a surgeon whose body was found Monday morning in Nysa after he returned from hospital duty. The bodies of two women and two other men have been found in other communities in the region.

Police in the Czech Republic said that a woman and two men drowned in the northeast, which has been pounded by record rainfall since Thursday. The woman was found in the water in the town of Krasov and the men were found dead at different locations after water receded in the town of Krnov which was almost completely submerged on Sunday

Romanian authorities said Monday that another person died in the eastern county of Galati, bringing the total number of deaths there to seven.

One death previously was reported in Austria.

Authorities in the Czech Republic declared an emergency in two northeastern regions, including in the Jeseniky mountains near the Polish border.

A number of towns and cities had been submerged in the northeast, with thousands evacuated. Military helicopters joined rescuers on boats in efforts to transport people to safety. Waters were receding from the mountainous areas on Monday, leaving behind destroyed houses and bridges and damaged roads.

In most parts of the country, conditions were expected to improve later Monday.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala visited the town of Jesenik, one of the hardest hit places.

“The worst is behind us and now, we have to deal with all the damage,” Fiala said following the visit.

In Hungary, the mayor of Budapest warned residents that the largest floods in a decade were expected to hit the capital later in the week, with the waters of the Danube River set to breach the city’s lower quays by Tuesday morning.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán canceled his planned foreign engagements, including an address to a plenary session of the European Parliament on Wednesday where heated debates were expected over his conduct since Hungary took over the European Union’s rotating presidency in July.

“Until we reach the peak and get past the worst of it, I naturally won’t be leaving the country, I’ll be here at home,” he said.

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony wrote on Facebook that the city would use 1 million sandbags to bolster flood defenses, and asked residents to take extra care when near the river.

Karel Janicek reported from Prague. Justin Spike contributed to this report from Budapest, Hungary.

The version corrects a dollar conversion in the third graf, $260 million not $258,000.

Harris zeroes in on high food and housing prices as inflation plays a big role in the campaign

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Harris zeroes in on high food and housing prices as inflation plays a big role in the campaign

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