President Biden signed an executive order Friday afternoon that takes aim at what the White House describes as the growing problem of corporate consolidation in U.S. and the higher prices, lower wages and reduced choice imposed by that trend on workers and consumers.
The move is the latest salvo in a widening war between the federal and state governments and big business over monopoly power and anticompetitive practices, and one the Biden administration hopes will boost the economic prospects of Americans without adding to the already substantial federal budget deficit.
Capitol Report: Biden signs executive order that aims to rein in big business: ‘Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation.’
Also: Biden’s executive order targeting big business and competition: full text
Here are the seven markets the Biden plan targets:
Labor
The executive order targets policies and laws that prevent qualified workers from easily starting a new career or switching jobs within an industry in search of higher wages or better benefits and working conditions.
According the bipartisan Economic Innovation Group, about 20% of all workers in America are covered by noncompete agreements that bar them from searching for work with a competitor of their employer, preventing them from seeking higher pay at those companies.
These arrangements typically apply to better-compensated workers, but EIG’s analysis showed that between 12% and 25% of workers making less than $80,000 a year are subject to such agreements, with government investigations revealing that even some fast-food purveyors have banned their employees from seeking employment with competitors.
Biden will direct the Federal Trade Commission to ban or restrict the use noncompete agreements.
Healthcare
According to the White House, Biden has directed the Food and Drug Administration “to work with states and tribes to safely import prescription drugs from Canada.” It doesn’t mention that the Trump administration began this push through rule making at the Department of Health and Human Services last year.
In May the Biden administration indicated that the FDA was not in a hurry to work with states on this issue, saying in a court filing that “no timeline exists” for the agency to approve state plans to import drugs. Critics say, meanwhile, that importing drugs from Canada will do little to lower drug prices in America, and that more aggressive action, like directly regulating prices, will be the only effective strategy.
Biden also directed the Federal Trade Commission to create a rule banning the practice of large drug companies paying generic manufacturers to delay the development of generic versions of their drugs. It should be noted that the agency has said that this practice peaked in use in 2014 and that FTC court actions and state laws like one recently…
Read More: These 7 markets are the target of Biden’s new anti-monopoly executive order