‘Stop the price-gouging’: Biden hits corporations over high consumer costs

President Joe Biden took aim at corporations Monday for charging prices he said were artificially high even though the rate of inflation has slowed and some shipping costs have fallen.

“Any corporation that has not brought their prices back down, even as inflation has come down, even as the supply chains have been rebuilt, it’s time to stop the price-gouging,” Biden said at the launch of a new White House supply chain initiative. “Give the American consumer a break.”

While it’s true that the annual rate of inflation has cooled from its high last summer, this doesn’t translate directly into falling consumer prices. It only means that prices are rising at a lower rate.

Prices for some everyday goods have fallen over the past year, a reality reflected in lower Thanksgiving costs this year, for example. And lower costs have in turn left some consumers with more money in their budgets for things like Black Friday shopping, which rose 7.5% this past weekend over a year ago.

As Biden runs for reelection, the White House has sought to claim these broad spending and pricing trends as victories for the president and his economic agenda, dubbed Bidenomics.

But the argument that Biden deserves the credit for a strong economic recovery has proven to be a tough sell to voters, who consistently give the president low marks on the economy.

“We understand that people are still not feeling it, we get that,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday, ahead of the president’s supply chain event.

Faced with a skeptical audience, targeting so called junk fees, which Biden said “companies sneak into your…