Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement in response to the introduction of the Stop Price Fixing Act, a new bill sponsored by Pennsylvania Representative Nick Pisciottano that would address tacit and explicit forms of price-fixing collusion.

“Pennsylvania lawmakers can put money back in the pockets of working families by passing the Stop Price Fixing Act,” said Lee Hepner, Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Many of the most dramatic and arbitrary price increases we see are the result of illegal price fixing among a small handful of dominant corporations yet existing laws make it virtually impossible for the communities harmed by that abuse to seek any relief. The Stop Price Fixing Act gives teeth to today’s unenforceable price-fixing laws, and gives working families a fighting chance against shameless corporate profiteering.”

Research suggests that some of the dramatic price increases seen across the economy today are not legal. Nearly every industry in the United States is controlled by a few dominant firms that can engage in coordinated price hikes and wage suppression without triggering obvious alarm among antitrust enforcers. These cartels are effective at keeping prices high and wages low. Indeed, the best modern scholarship shows that cartels raise prices by an average of 49% while a recent report from the U.S. Treasury Department found concentrated power has suppressed workers’ wages by roughly 20% on average, and by almost 30% for lower wage workers. These dominant firms are rarely held accountable; even very conservative scholars believe that antitrust enforcers catch only 20% to 30% of illegal cartels in the U.S.

In response to this crisis, Rep. Pisciottano’s Stop Price Fixing Act draws on key policy solutions outlined in Economic Liberties’ model legislation, “How Policymakers Can Stop Monopoly Price Hikes.”

Read “How Policymakers Can Stop Monopoly Price Hikes” 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.