The following content is Electronic Payments Union.
American families are facing an economic crisis like never before. Prices have never been higher, and inflation is still driving up costs. Even basic necessities are becoming unaffordable. Yet while you and your family are putting food on the table and budgeting for groceries and back-to-school supplies, retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Target continue to line their pockets at your expense.
So who’s helping them? None other than Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-KY), who are working tirelessly to get the bill passed. Credit Card Law A bill that imposes obligations on the government regarding how credit card transactions are processed.
These mandates would change the current system by allowing retailers to route in-store credit card transactions through cheaper, less-tested networks. Pushing through these mandates would benefit Durbin and Marshall’s megastore cronies, who stand to gain even more but refuse to pass on the savings to their loyal customers.
Unfortunately, this proposed change comes at the expense of ordinary Americans, as banks often use interchange from card transactions to fund loyalty and rewards programs and strengthen consumer data privacy measures.
This isn’t the first time Senator Durbin’s bill has left consumers paying the price. In 2010, Congress passed the Durbin Amendment, which required the Federal Reserve to cap interchange on debit card purchases, putting billions of dollars in the hands of big retailers. Retailers promised to pass those savings on to consumers, but a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond found that: Indicated Despite the interchange adjustments, more than 98% of companies increased or kept their prices the same, according to another University of Chicago study. found After the Durbin Amendment went into effect in 2010, families lost about $25 billion.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) release A report earlier this year highlighted how grocery conglomerates exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to inflate prices of essential goods and boost profits.
According to the report’s findings, retail grocers such as Kroger, Walmart and Amazon saw their revenues exceed spending costs by more than 6% in 2021 and 7% in 2023. This resulted in profit increases that were “significantly higher” compared to the all-time high of 5.6% in 2015. The FTC said the findings “cast doubt on the assertion that grocery store price increases are simply in step with retailers’ own cost increases.”
These retailers were well aware of the economic hardships people around the world were experiencing at the time, yet they chose to raise prices for their customers. How long will the exploitation of American families and consumers continue?
“Durbin’s credit card bill will only be another blow to already struggling Americans and further demonstrate that the corporate megastores will stop at nothing to make money, even if it means hurting you and your family. We’ve seen Durbin do this before. It’s time to end this harmful cycle and stop making American families pay the price.
