Washington, DC — Ahead of the 2024 State of the Union, the American Economic Liberties Project released a new memo looking back at the successes of the Biden Administration’s revolutionary competition agenda, and calling on the President to highlight these victories in his address on March 8.

“Competition policy has been one of the most significant cornerstones of President Biden’s economic agenda,” said Nidhi Hegde, Interim Executive Director at the American Economic Liberties Project. “In three remarkably effective years, he has flipped the script on a 40-year history of rampant corporate consolidation and free-rein abuses of monopoly power—tilting the scales back in favor of consumers, workers, and small businesses. From banking to healthcare, agriculture to tech, Biden’s enforcers are making clear that the era of leniency towards big corporations is over, saving working families billions.”

“We hope to see the President take pride in how his FTC and DOJ are challenging corporate power across all sectors,” Hegde added. “With investigations into UnitedHealth Group and Apple, live suits against Google, Amazon, Kroger-Albertsons, and Meta, and successful suits or abandonments against JetBlue-Spirit, Penguin Random House-Simon & Schuster, Illumina-Grail, Cigna-Humana, and many more, this is an unprecedented enforcement agenda. These efforts, along with robust rulemakings, are delivering tangible benefits for working families, from cheaper airfares, lower meat and drug prices, to greater protections for workers and record-breaking small business starts.”

Five concrete results of Biden’s competition agenda are:

• Airfares are 3% lower than prior to the pandemic in January of 2020, and the 2023 holiday travel season had the fewest flight cancellations since 2014. This is the result of blocked airline mergers and regulatory initiatives, such as a record $140 million fine against Southwest over mass flight disruptions.
• Bank overdraft fees have dropped by half since 2019, saving the average family $150, as a result of regulatory action by the CFPB.
• Inhalers and insulin list prices are dropping due to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The price of Astrazeneca’s SYMBICORT inhaler is down by 40%, the prices of Eli Lilly’s Humalog KWIKPEN is down by 70%, and the price of Sanofi’s Lantus Solostar is down by 78%.
• Compared to 2022, turkey prices dropped 22% for Thanksgiving in 2023. Pork prices also fell last year, in part because of Biden antitrust action against price-fixing in the turkey and pork industries.
• Americans have started a record number of businesses since the Biden administration started, with 5.5 million new business applications in 2023. The Biden administration’s rescue plans ensured Americans had the capital to spur this entrepreneurial surge.

Read “The State of the Biden Administration’s Competition Agenda” here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.