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

AP White House Correspondent

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.”

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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.