United States – The Biden administration announced Tuesday its anti-inflationary and anti-charges policy, which targets various fees (such as junk fees) and includes a joint agency effort to eliminate overpricing. In addition, the administration limited banks’ ability to overcharge credit card users for late payments.
Striking Down Overpricing
The administration officials announced that the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission will operate jointly as a “strike force” to apply sanctions to illegal corporate misconduct that charges Americans extra through anticartel or fraudulent businesses, as reported by Reuters.
Credit Card Fee Reduction
In doing so, the administration will complete a rule that reduces credit card fees from a USD31 average to USD8, and another rule that gives ranchers and farmers greater negotiating power when dealing with meat packers., officials said.
“The late credit card fees have become way too high,” Rohit Chopra Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director said during a press call before releasing this information.
The effort to tackle high prices is taking place with Democratic President Joe Biden and his allies trying to shift the common perception that Joe Biden has failed to prove his economic stewardship.
Biden will focus on steps that will be taken next week, which is the sixth meeting of the Competition Council by executive order because he wants to stop the saturation of practices in sectors like agriculture, drugs, and labor.
Targeting “Junk Fees”
Biden has been as pushy as Stopping major enterprises such as AirBnb (ABNB.O) and LiveNation(LYV.N) customers, which pay extra charges, which are termed as Junk fees, to book concert tickets, airfares, and hotels.
U.S. White House Council of Economic Suggestions indicates that the administration’s actions would eliminate over USD20 billion annually in junk fees. White House officials said the measures to be included in the anti-junk fees moving will appear for the first time in Biden’s State of Union Speech, which he is to deliver on Thursday this week.
Savings for American Families
The presidential candidate Chopra said that such a restriction will allow US families to save USD10 billion annually out of a total who pay such fees annually 45 million, which means an average of USD220 a year per 45 million of these families. Credit issuers from 2010 have been taking advantage of a tiny incident which prevented the prohibition of unfair collection of fees from coming into force. This was done by gradually raising the fees rather than imposing them once each year with automatic inflation adjustments, – Deputy Chopra explained.
By way of this Department of Agriculture rule initially published last September, employers can’t take retaliatory actions against employees for their activities like asserting their rights under the Packers and Stockyards Act. The purpose of this act is to maintain competition among producers of farm animals, meat, and poultry, as reported by Reuters.
“This final rule will provide for clearer, more effective standards by which to govern all of this in the modern marketplace,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on a Monday press call.