Opportunity. Fairness. Hard work. These are just some of the values that define New York, and the values I ran in when I campaigned to represent my community in the State Assembly. I believe New York can once again be a place where every family can afford to live, where everyone is welcome, and where opportunity reaches every neighborhood. 

To make New York more affordable, we need to hold powerful interests accountable for the role they play in driving up costs, particularly for groceries. 

Since the onset of CoViD-19, big box grocers and others told us inflation and supply chain disruptions were to blame for the price increases we saw in their stores. Conveniently, that explanation left out the fact that the stores turned those disruptions into opportunities to make money for themselves. In 2024, consumer rights think tank the Groundwork Collaborative found that corporate profits drove 53 percent of inflation during the second and third quarters of 2023, and that families are paying 25 percent more for groceries than they were before the pandemic, outpacing the inflation rate.

Now, with tariffs and trade tensions in the headlines, big box retailers are dusting off the same playbook and using the uncertainty as a reason to raise prices again. According to reports, Walmart and Target did not even wait for tariffs to actually take effect before having their employees change price tags in their stores. 

The New York I believe in fights to protect consumers from price manipulation. It also looks out for the workers who stock the shelves. Sadly, the big box retailers do not seem to share this vision. Not only do they manipulate prices to pad their…