(Headline USA) Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this week downplayed the sharp increase in grocery prices over the past few years, arguing she is not “surprised” by them.
Yellen commented during an interview with Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger on Monday after being asked whether she’s seen the recent grocery price increases firsthand.
“I sure have – I go every week,” Yellen replied.
Schonberger then asked Yellen whether she gets “sticker shock,” since “food prices still remain high.”
Yellen, who is worth an estimated $20 million, gave a sharp answer before Schonberger could even finish her question.
“No,” Yellen said, going on to claim that any food price increases are the result of “cost increases, including labor cost increases that grocery firms have experienced, although there may be some increases in margins.”
She then insisted that inflation is still coming down and that it will “go back to the Fed’s 2% target” by early next year.
The Biden official also claimed she has met with several grocery store CEOs in an effort to get them to cut costs for necessities, such as bread, milk, and diapers.
Yellen isn’t the only one in the Biden administration to downplay inflation’s effects. President Joe Biden himself has repeatedly dismissed Americans’ concerns about rising prices, arguing last month that Americans “have the money to spend.”
He has also denied that his administration’s policies have affected inflation.
“No president’s had the run we’ve had in terms of creating jobs and bringing down inflation. It was 9% percent when I came to office, 9%,” he told CNN in May. “I think inflation has gone slightly up. It was at 9% when I came in, and it’s now down around 3%.”
Inflation in January 2021, when Biden first took office, was 1.4%. It went on to peak at 9$ in June 2022, after Biden had been president for more than 16 months.
