Ilhan Omar Has A Plan To Punish Corporations For 'Shrinkflation'

Rep. Ilhan Omar and other progressive lawmakers say it’s time to crack down on companies for “shrinkflation.”

The Minnesota Democrat unveiled a bill Friday that would require brands to add labels to their packaging noting when they’ve reduced the amount of product a package contains but kept its price the same. She and her 14 House co-sponsors are calling the bill the “Shrinkflation Reduction Act.”

Democrats, including President Joe Biden , have been hammering companies for shrinking consumer goods like toilet paper and potato chips without lowering their cost. Manufacturers sometimes use the practice to mask price increases, since consumers are more sensitive to sticker prices.

Omar told HuffPost in a statement that it was “unacceptable that corporations are secretly downsizing their products to pad their profits.”

“This bill will shine a light on these deceptive practices and give consumers the information they need to make informed choices,” she said. “Shrinkflation is a hidden tax on working families, and it’s time we put a stop to it.”

Democrats have been hammering companies for shrinking consumer goods like paper towels and potato chips without lowering their cost.

“We must protect consumers from such deceptive practices and, at a minimum, provide enough transparency for consumers to make fully informed financial decisions when purchasing food and other household items,” she wrote.

The bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission to develop a rule requiring the labels, deeming it a “deceptive or unfair” trade practice to shrink products without informing the public. Companies that run afoul of the rule would be subject to fines.

The bill text defines shrinkflation as “the practice of downsizing, including by reducing the amount or size of, a consumer product while not decreasing the price of such product by a commensurate amount.”

Omar said the labeling requirement was inspired by similar measures recently instituted in South Korea and France .

The bill is similar to one that Democrats introduced in the Senate and House earlier this year. That legislation , championed by Sen. Bob Casey (Penn.) and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), also directs the FTC to develop a rule classifying shrinkflation as a deceptive practice, though it does not specifically call for labeling on products.

The shrinkflation bills are highly unlikely to land on Biden’s desk, as Republicans control the House and Democrats hold a razor-thin majority in the Senate. So far the bills have attracted only Democratic lawmakers as co-sponsors, and not all of them.

But many Democrats see it as a winning issue with voters. The Biden administration has tried to build an agenda around reducing prices for families, in part by attacking hidden or “junk” fees corporations attach to their products.

The shrinkflation phenomenon has been around for years, but it gained fresh attention amid a period of high inflation and rising prices in grocery stores. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency that tracks consumer prices, said the most common categories that companies shrink are household goods like paper towels and snacks like chips and candy.

It’s not always easy to spot when products start to shrivel.

“Downsizing is sometimes hard to identify because manufacturers employ a variety of means to reduce package size while keeping the same price,” Kari McNair, a BLS economist, wrote last year. “For example, they might add air to the package or increase the divot in the bottom of the jar.”