A new study shared exclusively with the Lever details how corporate media has routinely downplayed the effects of corporate greed on price increases, often citing industry talking points or providing no explanation at all for crippling inflation over the past few years. Lawmakers then parroted these anti-greedflation narratives as they slashed pandemic aid, blocked spending, and abandoned efforts to increase the national minimum wage.

Now, with greedflation making a comeback as companies use President Donald Trump’s tariff threats to justify jacking up prices, the study’s coauthor warns that politicians and regulators could once again use skewed corporate coverage to justify policies that further hurt consumers.

“Policymakers are just being fed this constant diet of, ‘Oh, it’s beyond [businesses’] control,” Hal Singer, an antitrust economist and managing director of the economic consulting firm Econ One, told the Lever. “What worries me is that this is our information ecosystem, and this is how policymakers are being informed. I want to make sure they’re getting accurate information.”