{"id":114917,"date":"2025-08-27T23:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T23:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/114917\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T23:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T23:47:08","slug":"corporate-media-doesnt-want-to-talk-about-greedflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/114917\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Media Doesn\u2019t Want to Talk About Greedflation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0shared exclusively with\u00a0the Lever\u00a0details how corporate media has routinely downplayed the effects of corporate greed on price increases, often citing industry talking points or providing no explanation at all for crippling inflation over the past few years. Lawmakers then\u00a0parroted<\/a> these anti-greedflation narratives as they slashed pandemic aid, blocked spending, and abandoned efforts to increase the national minimum wage.<\/p>\n

Now, with greedflation\u00a0making a comeback<\/a>\u00a0as companies use President Donald Trump\u2019s tariff threats to justify\u00a0jacking up prices<\/a>, the study\u2019s coauthor warns that politicians and regulators could once again use skewed corporate coverage to justify policies that further hurt consumers.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolicymakers are just being fed this constant diet of, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s beyond [businesses\u2019] control,\u201d Hal Singer, an antitrust economist and managing director of the economic consulting firm\u00a0Econ One<\/a>, told\u00a0the Lever. \u201cWhat worries me is that this is our information ecosystem, and this is how policymakers are being informed. I want to make sure they\u2019re getting accurate information.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study, conducted by Singer and Abla Abdulkadir, found that corporate news outlets tended \u201cto attribute industry price hikes to factors beyond the control of the sellers in that industry.\u201d The report noted that many of the articles examined failed to cite impartial experts or note that the stock markets experienced\u00a0high returns<\/a>\u00a0during the\u00a0years<\/a>\u00a0companies were raising prices.<\/p>\n

The study examined business reporting by the\u00a0Wall Street Journal,\u00a0the Washington Post, the\u00a0New York Times, the Economist,\u00a0Politico, the\u00a0Financial Times, CNBC,\u00a0Bloomberg, and\u00a0Axios\u00a0from January 2023 to the present. It found that on average, roughly 60 percent of the articles blamed price hikes on factors outside companies\u2019 control rather than profit motives.<\/p>\n

Axios\u00a0led the pack with 100 percent of its articles ignoring greedflation as a possible cause, followed by CNBC with 73 percent of its coverage neglecting to mention corporate incentives for price hikes. Coming in third was\u00a0the\u00a0Washington Post, owned by tech billionaire Jeff Bezos, with 65 percent of its articles failing to mention that companies might have a hand in raising prices.<\/p>\n

The study comes as\u00a0market indexes<\/a>\u00a0reach\u00a0all-time highs<\/a>, even as government reports show\u00a0large spikes<\/a>\u00a0in inflation for everyday items. Trump\u2019s White House could be making matters worse by revoking a Biden-era executive order that targeted price-gouging monopolies.<\/p>\n

Singer said one of the reasons corporate media likely isn\u2019t properly reporting on price hikes is that reporters are being fed press releases or statements from industry spokespeople and not properly interrogating the information. As the number of reporters has declined over the past few decades, the number of public relations specialists has exploded. In 2023, there were more than\u00a0308,000 PR specialists<\/a>\u00a0nationwide, compared to just\u00a049,800 reporters<\/a>, according to government data.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf literally all you do is copy and paste the press release into your story, and you don\u2019t call anyone outside of the employ of the industry, that, to me, is the most egregious sin,\u201d Singer said. \u201cAt that point, I don\u2019t think you\u2019re operating as a reporter; you\u2019re an extension of the PR team.\u201d<\/p>\n

In both 2023 and 2024, the\u00a0S&P 500<\/a>, a market index tracking the 500 largest US-based companies, was up more than 23 percent, according to\u00a0academic<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0industry<\/a>\u00a0reports. So far this year, even amid tariff threats and widespread business uncertainty, the stock market has climbed to\u00a0all-time highs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In fact, as the country has been mired in inflation spikes since the pandemic, corporate profits have skyrocketed. From 2010 to 2019, corporate profits accounted for roughly 14 percent of the total national income. In the fourth quarter of 2024, those profits had increased to more than 16 percent of the nation\u2019s income, according to a Federal Reserve branch\u00a0study released<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n

Since the pandemic, many experts have\u00a0warned<\/a>\u00a0about the\u00a0effects<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0greedflation<\/a>, which is when corporations\u00a0engage<\/a>\u00a0in \u201cprofiteering by hiking their prices at rates much higher than annual inflation rates.\u201d But the corporate press largely\u00a0downplayed<\/a>\u00a0those\u00a0concerns<\/a>. The\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0called greedflation a \u201cconspiracy theory<\/a>\u201d on par with conservatives falsely claiming that the antiparasitic drug ivermectin was a cure for COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Singer and Abdulkadir\u2019s study identified more than 1,900 business articles on price increases published since the beginning of 2023, which they narrowed down to one hundred articles using a computer algorithm and manual selection. Of this subset, the authors found that reporters increasingly cited outside factors \u2014 such as droughts, minimum-wage increases, or plant closures \u2014 as reasons why companies raised prices.<\/p>\n

For example, a January 2025\u00a0Axios\u00a0article quoted an egg supplier and a market-intelligence company to\u00a0conclude<\/a>\u00a0that bird flu was \u201ccausing egg prices to soar to new record high.\u201d The reporter made no mention of the fact that in 2023, the country\u2019s largest egg suppliers were\u00a0found guilty<\/a>\u00a0of reducing egg supply to increase prices.<\/p>\n

Even when outlets mentioned the concept of greedflation, the topic was barely covered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they do mention seller behavior, it is often a secondary consideration and even then, it is often portrayed in an innocuous light,\u201d the study states.<\/p>\n

Singer pointed to a July 4, 2025,\u00a0New York Times\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0about how beef price increases could be tied to drought. The article highlighted that there are 13 percent fewer US beef cattle than in 2019, a development the reporter chalked up to environmental conditions. However, more than halfway through the story, the author mentioned another possible cause: beef purchasers, large and small, have sued major meat processors, alleging price-fixing collusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeat processors have denied the claims, but settled some suits for tens of millions of dollars, without admitting wrongdoing,\u201d the\u00a0Times\u00a0wrote.<\/p>\n

That was the extent of the article\u2019s coverage of the alleged price-fixing scheme. There were no quotes or expert analysis on the role that large meat processors play in beef prices \u2014 which is a problem, said the authors of the new media study.<\/p>\n

\u201cContacting industry experts referred by the issuers of company press releases should not constitute objective verification for business news pieces,\u201d they wrote. \u201cSpeaking with a consumer advocate, labor advocate, or economist without conflicting interests might serve as a good reality check and guide the production of articles with more nuanced discussions of seller\u2019s relationships to price changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

On August 14, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a federal agency tasked with monitoring workforce and economic trends, found that\u00a0inflation rose nearly 1 percent in July<\/a>, and 3.3 percent over the past year. It was \u201cthe largest 12-month increase since rising 3.4 percent in February 2025,\u201d the bureau noted.<\/p>\n

The bureau\u2019s\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0also found that overall food prices rose 4.2 percent from July 2024, with vegetable prices jumping 36.3 percent, beef prices rising 9.9 percent, pork up 4.7 percent, and coffee prices up nearly 30 percent.<\/p>\n

According to the new study, outlets largely blamed Trump\u2019s on-and-off tariff announcements for recent price hikes, despite evidence that many companies appear to be using the political upheaval as\u00a0a smoke screen<\/a>\u00a0to increase profits.<\/p>\n

What has received less attention are the corporate machinations behind the scenes. For example, Trump\u2019s Justice Department is\u00a0investigating egg producers<\/a>\u00a0for alleged price-fixing schemes, frozen potato companies are being sued for operating as a \u201ccartel<\/a>,\u201d and a major beef processor agreed to settle a\u00a0lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year regarding anticompetitive practices. There\u2019s also\u00a0growing consolidation<\/a>\u00a0in the coffee sector.<\/p>\n

Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of the antimonopoly-focused\u00a0BIG\u00a0newsletter, noted in a recent\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0that even the Bureau of Labor Statistics\u2019s own data suggested that recent inflation was due in large part to increasing corporate profits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest contributor to higher service prices seems to be profit margins,\u201d Stoller wrote in an\u00a0August 14 column<\/a>. \u201cThe term for margins in the [Producer Price Index report] is called \u2018trade services,\u2019 and the [bureau] says over half the increase in service costs \u2018is attributable to margins for final demand trade services, which jumped 2.0 percent.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Singer added that corporations may see\u00a0inflation as a good thing<\/a>, since it can enable them to raise prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecall that the last bout of inflation coincided with \u2014 and was caused in part by \u2014 surging profits,\u201d he said. \u201cCompanies used COVID as a pretext to hike prices by more than any cost increase.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inflation spikes come as\u00a0Trump rolled back<\/a> a Biden-era executive order this month designed to limit corporate consolidation and subsequent price gouging. The 2021 Biden order<\/a> \u201cencouraged\u201d the attorney general, the Federal Trade Commission, and other agencies to \u201cenforce the antitrust laws fairly and vigorously,\u201d and directed other agency heads to develop \u201ca plan to continue the effort to combat excessive pricing of prescription drugs and enhance domestic pharmaceutical supply chains,\u201d among other actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the last several decades, as industries have consolidated, competition has weakened in too many markets, denying Americans the benefits of an open economy and widening racial, income, and wealth inequality,\u201d Biden wrote in the\u00a0executive order<\/a>. \u201cFederal Government inaction has contributed to these problems, with workers, farmers, small businesses, and consumers paying the price.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US Chamber of Commerce, the\u00a0largest<\/a>\u00a0lobbying group in the country,\u00a0staunchly opposed<\/a>\u00a0Biden\u2019s executive order, stating in 2021 that it was \u201cbuilt on the flawed belief that our economy is over-concentrated, stagnant, and fails to generate private investment needed to spur innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

On August 13, Trump\u00a0revoked<\/a>\u00a0the Biden order. The following day, the Chamber\u00a0praised<\/a>\u00a0the move, noting \u201cPresident Trump has rightfully chosen vigorous competition that entrusts American consumers to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, not more government bureaucracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chamber\u00a0donated $50,000<\/a>\u00a0to Trump\u2019s inauguration and has spent more than $38 million so far this year lobbying Congress, the White House, and regulators on antitrust issues and other matters,\u00a0disclosures<\/a>\u00a0show<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The National Family Farm Coalition, an advocacy group, slammed Trump\u2019s recent action.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe revocation of this executive order will worsen existing conditions that allow abuses and the consolidation of power by the largest companies to go unchecked at the expense of small businesses, including independent farmers, and their customers,\u201d the organization\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Civil Eats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new\u00a0study\u00a0shared exclusively with\u00a0the Lever\u00a0details how corporate media has routinely downplayed the effects of corporate greed on price…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-114917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}