Joe Biden met virtually with family and independent farmers and ranchers to discuss his administration’s work to “Boost competition and reduce prices in the meat-processing industry.”
What that essentially means is that Biden’s administration intends to throw money at the industry in an attempt to offset rising inflation.
Biden blamed corporate “middlemen” rather than inflation that has caused the price of food and consumer goods to spike.
While speaking, Biden decided to tell a story about the rising cost of hamburger meat that he was alerted to when he was at his Delaware home for the past week.
Biden recounted, “I was sitting in my kitchen yesterday and here’s a sunroom off the kitchen and my wife was there with her sister and a good friend named Mary Ann and she was saying, ‘Do you realize it’s over $5 for a pound of hamburger meat? $5?'”
“Well this is partly, you know, the pound of beef today costs 5 bucks compared to less than 4 bucks before the pandemic and here’s some historical context: 50 years ago, ranchers got over 60 cents for every dollar a family spent on beef,” the president continued.
Biden explained, “Today, they get about 39 cents. 50 years ago hog farmers got 40 to 50 cents for each dollar they spent. Today, it’s about 19 cents. And the big companies are making massive profits.”
“While their profits go up, the prices you see in the grocery stores go up commensurate and the prices farmers receive for the products they are bringing to market go down. This reflects the market being distorted by lack of competition,” Biden insisted.
As the New York Post reported, earlier today, the White House announced plans to spend $1 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds to support independent meat processing companies and pinned much of the blame on four major firms.
BIDEN: "[My wife's friend] was sayin’ ‘do you realize it’s over 5 dollars for a pound of hamburger meat?!’ 5 dollars. Well this is partly, you know, the pound of beef today costs 5 bucks compared to less than 4 bucks before the pandemic.” pic.twitter.com/lsni8p98Uk
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 3, 2022
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