Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 22, 2020.
Rhonda Churchill
President Joe Biden will visit the battleground state of Nevada on Tuesday to take aim at corporate landlords, who the White House claims are keeping rents artificially high even as overall inflation eases.
Biden’s attack on what he calls “rent gouging” is part of his broader election-year effort to shift responsibility for the high cost of living away from the president and his economic policies and onto corporations with outsized pricing power .
As public views on the economy become more optimistic, housing remains a major pain point. The latest Consumer Price Index, a key measure of inflation, found that energy and housing costs were the main drivers of a 0.4% rise in consumer prices in February.
Housing costs ranked as second most important financial concern for respondents in recent survey Financial Times/Michigan Ross The survey of 1,010 registered voters showed that only overall inflation was behind the inflation.
As a result, housing is becoming Biden’s main front in his battle against corporate pricing power, a war in which he also pursues high drug and food prices.
Speaking in Nevada, Biden will beef up housing provisions in his 2025 budget proposal, target “rent gouging by corporate landlords,” and call on Congress to pass legislation to lower housing costs, according to a White House fact sheet.
Biden wins Nevada in 2020, but recent polls show him trailing Republican candidate Donald Trump in the Silver State.
Housing in Biden’s broader agenda
“This president has always been willing to take on powerful interests to lower costs for families,” a senior administration official told reporters on Monday. “This housing agenda is just another example of that.”
last week, national association of realtors A $418 million settlement was announced to resolve an antitrust lawsuit brought by home sellers who claimed the industry’s long-standing commission structure amounted to collusion between NAR and its member brokerage firms. In a statement, the trade group denied any wrongdoing.
“The recent settlement by the National Association of Realtors is an important step toward increasing competition in the housing market,” National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard said on a conference call with reporters on Monday.
Under the Biden administration, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department’s antitrust divisions have been particularly aggressive in challenging large mergers in court.
It’s all part of Biden’s broader battle against conglomerates and companies he sees as too powerful and those he says have adopted anti-competitive practices that distort the free market.
Biden’s quest to restore what he calls “fair, open and competitive markets” has become a cornerstone of the president’s economic platform.
On the campaign trail, that often means trying to convince voters that big corporations are more responsible for the financial pain of average Americans than his policies.
Here, recently Financial Times poll A sign that Biden’s efforts may be starting to pay off.
The proportion of respondents who believe that “big companies take advantage of inflation” is partly responsible for rising prices climbed 9 percentage points from November to March, reaching 63%. The poll’s margin of error is +/-3.1%.
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