STATEMENT: President Biden’s Executive Order Will Level the Playing Field and Generate Economic Growth
Washington, D.C. — Today, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that will lower prices for consumers and spur economic growth by cracking down on anti-competitive practices in a wide range of industries. Following the signing of the order, Andres Vinelli, vice president for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
For decades, everyday Americans have borne the brunt of higher prices and lower wages as an increasingly small number of corporations have dominated the U.S. economy due to unfair, anti-competitive practices. Anti-competitive behavior by large corporations has made it more difficult to change jobs, start a business, get the care you need to stay healthy, or even fix a product that you already own. Economists have long cited anti-competitive practices as a drag on economic growth and a driver of both economic inequality and the racial wealth gap.
With today’s executive order, President Biden is leveling the playing field for consumers, workers, farmers, patients, and small-business owners. Today’s executive order directly addresses some of the most egregious anti-competitive practices in banking, tech, agriculture, health care, transportation, and labor. This executive order, along with the policies contained within the bipartisan infrastructure framework and the administration’s Build Back Better plan, will help the country to recover from the coronavirus crisis more quickly and equitably as well as generate a new era of long-term economic growth.
Related resources:
- “Provider Consolidation Drives Up Health Care Costs” by Emily Gee and Ethan Gurwitz
- “States Must Act to Protect Workers From Exploitative Noncompete and No-Poach Agreements” by Karla Walter
- “Switching to Responsible Banking” by Andy Green and Divya Vijay
- “The Path to Higher, More Inclusive Economic Growth and Good Jobs” by Andres Vinelli and Christian E. Weller
- “Using Antitrust Law To Address the Market Power of Platform Monopolies” by Marc Jarsulic
- “How the Next Administration Can Lower Drug Prices” by Maura Calsyn and Thomas Waldrop
- “A Fair Deal for Farmers” by Zoe Willingham and Andy Green
- “Toward a Robust Competition Policy” by Marc Jarsulic, Ethan Gurwitz, and Andrew Schwartz
- “What Equity Markets Say About the State of Competition in the US Economy” by Marc Jarsulic
- “Evidence-Based Policy in Antitrust: The Need for Ongoing Merger Retrospectives” by John Kwoka and Marc Jarsulic
For more information or to speak to an expert, contact Julia Cusick at jcusick@americanprogress.org.