
In The Atlantic: The Great Grocery Squeeze
How a federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing to enforce the Robinson-Patman Act (RPA) once again, after decades of virtually no enforcement. Earlier this year, FTC Chair Lina Khan said, “We’re looking closely at areas where we might be able to do that in short order.” This fact sheet highlights why restoring enforcement of the law is crucially important to small businesses, consumers, and communities.
The decision by the FTC in the 1980s to stop enforcing the RPA was one of the most harmful and consequential policy decisions of the last 50 years.
Reviving RPA enforcement will benefit Americans by leading to more competition:
What is RPA? Congress enacted the Robinson-Patman Act in 1936 to safeguard the ability of Main Street businesses to compete. It requires suppliers to offer the same pricing and terms to all buyers; discounts are allowed only to the extent they reflect actual differences in cost (for supplying a large volume, for example). Reactivating RPA promises to stop powerful retailers from using their size and financial clout to eliminate independent businesses and dominate markets.
President Biden called for the FTC to revive antitrust enforcement broadly in his 2021 executive order on competition policy. The FTC’s follow-through on that call is an essential step toward reining in the widespread consolidation in today’s economy and creating healthy competition and thriving communities.
To learn more about the Robinson-Patman Act and the benefits of enforcing the law, please see:
Photo credit: Visitor7, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
How a federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert.
The decision to stop enforcing a single law decimated the independent grocery market and led to the dominance of big chains.
The FTC's lawsuit against Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits, utilizing the Robinson-Patman Act, could be an opportunity to restore fairness to the American economy
Powerful retailers are killing off small businesses by dominating supply chains. Our new report argues it’s time to revive the Robinson-Patman Act and restore antitrust...