There’s a big party line split in how Americans view the economy, with Republicans highly pessimistic about the way things are going. If the right is feeling the pinch of inflation just a little bit harder, it may be because one of their favorite restaurants is engaging in price gouging. Again.
In October, Chick-fil-A settled a class action lawsuit after raising the price for delivery orders as much as 30% during the pandemic. The company paid out $4.4 million to customers who found that the prices on the food chain’s app didn’t match what they were charged after fees were tacked on. That was despite at least one store recruiting unpaid volunteers to keep those sandwiches moving.
Now Fox Business is reporting a “surge” in Chick-fil-A’s prices. After jacking up the price of their “classic” sandwich by 15% in 2022, they increased it 6%more in 2023. Those thinking that the price of a bag at the fast food outlet has gone up sharply are right. Like many other companies, the infamously anti-LGBTQ chicken chain took advantage of a tough situation to generate record profits.
In a study published last summer, researchers showed that more than half of inflation in 2021 and 2022 could be attributed to a single cause. It wasn’t supply chain issues with China and it certainly wasn’t rising labor costs. It was simple greed.
The combination of rising monopoly power among massive consolidated corporations and companies sheltering behind the pandemic to generate record profits was reflected in a wide margin between what companies paid in costs of materials or labor and how they marked up prices to consumers. Companies excused some of these increases as anticipating cost increases that hadn’t yet hit, but the consequence was consumers paying now for costs that companies may face in the future. Or never.
As the authors of the report noted, “Publicly reported supply chain bottlenecks and cost shocks, serve to create legitimacy for price hikes and create acceptance on the part of consumers to pay higher prices.”
In other words, they lied about costs and used a crisis for price gouging. Maybe those are the ingredients behind that famous sandwich sauce.
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