Biden says prices ‘too high,’ asks sellers to lower them

WASHINGTON — President Biden acknowledged Monday that prices are still “too high” and argued that companies should lower them after an 18% jump in consumer costs since he took office.

“We know that prices are still too high for too many things — that times are still too tough for too many families,” the 81-year-old said near the White House.

“We’ve made progress, but we have more work to do,” Biden added. “Let me be clear to any corporation has not brought their prices back down, even as inflation has come down, even supply chains have been rebuilt: It’s time to stop the price gouging and give the American consumer a break.”

The prices of some goods, such as food products, are expected to decline in the coming months, but periods of general deflation are rare in US history.

Biden previously used his bully pulpit to try to pressure oil companies to take action to lower gas prices last year.

The president also attacked Republicans Monday, saying that they “want to go back to the bad old days when corporations looked around the world to find the cheapest labor they could find, just to send the jobs overseas and then import the products back to the United States” — despite opposition to outsourcing being a signature issue for former President Donald Trump.

“Now we’re building the products here and exporting products overseas,” Biden continued. “We’re not importing [sic] jobs. Folks, we’re not importing anything other than what we make.”

Trump, 77, is seeking an election rematch with Biden next year and is vowing even more aggressive populist economic policies to “decouple” the US from China and to wield tariffs to force other countries to agree to measures that improve US competitiveness.

Biden’s economic appeals come as American concerns about the economy and their finances top the opinion surveys of key 2024 election issues.

He has unsuccessfully sought to turn the tide of public pessimism by arguing the economy is doing well as a result of what he calls “Bidenomics.”

A  New York Times and Siena College poll of six swing states found earlier this month, however, that  81% of voters rate the economy “fair” or “poor” —  with 59% saying they trusted Trump on economic policy while just 37% said so of Biden.

Republicans have blamed Biden’s policies for contributing to inflation and a study this year by the Federal Reserve found that federal stimulus contributed 2.6% toward inflation, or about a quarter of the inflation over the typical 2% annual target since Biden took office.

Biden has emphasized other factors that fueled inflation, including supply chain issues linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and increased costs of energy and food linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Annual inflation has cooled this year due to aggressive interest rate hikes, though it remained an elevated 3.2% in October and interest hikes caused fresh consumer pain, sending average credit card rates to 27.81% — roughly double the 14.6% APR when Biden took office — and average 30-year home mortgage rates have soared from 2.65% to between 7 and 8% this year.