For Immediate Release: July 22, 2024
Press Contact: [email protected]

Biden’s Populist Economic Agenda Should Shape Democratic Party Future

Washington, D.C. — In response to news that President Biden is stepping down as nominee for the Democratic candidate for President in 2024, Fight Corporate Monopolies released the following statement.

“President Biden put the breaks on forty years of runaway corporate consolidation by championing a strong competition agenda,” said Nidhi Hegde from Fight Corporate Monopolies. “Starting with the appointment of FTC Chair Lina Khan, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, and AAG Jonathan Kanter, he sent a message to corporate America that his administration would work to shift power away from corporate monopolies and back to working families and local communities. Not only have these efforts led to lower prices across the economy, more accessible medicines, and a record number of small businesses starts, they’ve also resulted in bold challenges to the monopoly power of the biggest corporations in America. This is and should be the heart of a modern Democratic economic agenda.”

The accomplishments of the Biden Adminstration’s competition agenda include:

• Tackling junk fees to save Americans $20 billion per year: The Biden-Harris Administration is protecting consumers from deceptive junk fees across the economy, which cost the average household over $650 per year.
• Banning non-competes to raise wages and free workers: The Biden-Harris Administration has issued a rule to ban noncompete agreements, a rule projected to raise wages up to $488 billion over the next ten years, or $524 per year for the average worker.
• Fighting corporate power to reform healthcare: From lowering the costs of many asthma inhalers from hundreds of dollars to $35, to lowering the costs of hearing aids by as much as $3,000 for the 30 million Americans with hearing loss, the Biden-Harris Administration is rooting out inhumane corporate profiteering from healthcare.
• Cracking down on corporate price gouging in housing: The Biden-Harris Administration is going after a massive scheme between landlords to fix rent prices using a pricing algorithm. It involves 70% of multifamily apartment buildings, or 16 million units, and has been responsible for spikes in rent and vacancies in cities across the US.
• Enforcing the law against the biggest corporations: The FTC and DOJ have taken on the richest companies in the world—Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Ag, and Ticketmaster—for violating antitrust laws.
• Stopping anticompetitive tactics to bring down the cost of groceries: The Biden-Harris Administration is suing consolidated meat processors that colluded via a third-party information exchange to inflate the cost of turkey, chicken, and pork.

“As we move forward, it's imperative that the Democratic Party builds on this fight against corporate power and maintains the key personnel that are embracing economic populist policies,” added Hegde. “With the Trump campaign openly courting billionaires, whoever the Democratic candidate is has a prime opportunity to present a counter vision focused on protecting and empowering working people and small businesses. We urge all candidates to embrace this populist anti-corporate power mission and commit to a future where economic justice and opportunity are within reach for all Americans.”

You can read more about FCM’s advocacy work at: www.fightcorporatemonopolies.org

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Fight Corporate Monopolies is a registered 501(c)(4) nonprofit that is building a movement to address today’s crisis of concentrated economic power. We do not accept any funding from corporations. For more information on Fight Corporate Monopolies, visit:fightcorporatemonopolies.org.