You're Not Imagining It; Shrinkflation Is Real
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2024
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
Cookie Monster recently complained on social media that his favorite food was getting smaller. "Me hate shrinkflation!" the fuzzy blue monster declared. "Guess me going to have to eat double da cookies!"
President Biden promised to sign a bill banning it during his State of the Union address.
Shrinkflation isn't new.
It's been happening for years. But people seem to be paying more attention right now amidst high food prices and inflation. And the White House is clearly aware of that.
After years of rising prices, many Americans are fed up with paying more and getting less. Will the pendulum ever swing back?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | For a while it seemed like everything was getting big. |
| 0:04.0 | Super size makes it my place. |
| 0:06.0 | Super sizes are back. |
| 0:08.0 | Larger than large. |
| 0:09.0 | Super size, family pack. |
| 0:10.0 | From fast food to paper towels brands liked to claim their products would give |
| 0:14.7 | you more bang for your buck but for a while now something has been quietly |
| 0:19.2 | changing and people on social media are noticing like in this Tik-Toc. |
| 0:23.5 | Companies are out here gaslighting us into thinking that true inflation isn't real. |
| 0:28.5 | Look at that. There's like three chips. There's three chips in the whole bag. |
| 0:35.0 | Shrinkflation essentially means the companies are selling less product for the same price. |
| 0:40.0 | And after years of inflation hurting people's budgets, knowing that you aren't even |
| 0:44.6 | getting the same amount of stuff for your dollar can leave you feeling a little cheated. |
| 0:50.3 | President Biden even mentioned this in his State of the Union address. |
| 0:53.0 | In fact, the snack companies think you won't notice if they change the size of the bag and put a hell |
| 1:00.0 | a lot fewer, same size bag, put fewer chips in it. No I'm not joking. It's called shrink-flation. |
| 1:08.1 | Pass Bobby Casey's bill and stop this. He means Senator Bob Casey, Democrat from Pennsylvania. |
| 1:14.3 | Casey has proposed legislation meant to empower the Federal Trade Commission to |
| 1:18.6 | investigate companies for price gouging practices. He told NPR this week the problem goes deeper than shrink |
| 1:24.6 | inflation. This one example of shrink inflation is part of a much broader problem which is greed |
| 1:30.8 | inflation. We know that corporate profits went up by 75% from July of 20 to July |
| 1:36.4 | 22 and that's five times the rate of inflation. So they're jacking up their prices. And there's no consequence. |
... |
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