Mayor Eric Adams issued a state of emergency Sunday in hopes of curbing price gouging amid the baby formula shortage.
“The nationwide infant formula shortage has caused unimaginable pain and anxiety for families across New York — and we must act with urgency,” said Adams in a statement.
“This emergency executive order will help us to crack down on any retailer looking to capitalize on this crisis by jacking up prices on this essential good.”
Emergency Executive Order 98 allows the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to prevent price hikes for certain household products under 5-42 of Title 6 of the Rules of the City of New York.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio enacted the measure on March 15, 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when stores began to increase prices for hand sanitizer and masks.
The rule defines an “excessive price increase” as 10% or more above the usual price of a product.
“The nationwide infant formula shortage is hurting parents and families across our city at a time when we’re all still reeling from the crisis of [the] past two years,” Anne Williams-Isom, deputy mayor for Health and Human Services, said in the news release sent Sunday afternoon.
“This executive order will ensure all of our agencies can use every tool in their toolkit to get infant formula to those who need it and make sure our youngest New Yorkers stay.”
Shelves have remained bare at stores nationwide — a crisis caused by a February recall by supplier Abbott Nutrition of name-brand formulas produced in Michigan and a subsequent closure of its manufacturing facility.
During the first week of May, 43% of the most popular infant formulas were out of stock, 43% of baby formula was out of stock at retailers, according to Datasembly, a company that tracks retail pricing and sales.
On Wednesday, President Biden agreed to invoke the Defense Production Act to ensure that US baby formula producers can obtain the material they need and launched a new US government airlift of formula from abroad. The first international shipment of baby formula arrived in Indiana on Sunday.
The Food and Drug Administration last week permitted Abbott to reopen its Sturgis, Mich., factory, but the shortage of supplies is not expected to immediately be resolved.
“The nationwide infant formula shortage is hurting parents and families across our city at a time when we’re all still reeling from the crisis of [the] past two years,”
A crisis of unimaginable overreaction that I STILL can’t believe that the human race rolled over for. I actually sorry I lived to see it happen. NEVER MORE!
They’re at the WHO trying again with the Monkey Pox spread.
Democrats are the Monkey Pox as far as I am concerned. Democrats are a disease.
Liberalism has proven one thing under Biden. Life was good. the country was great with Trump. None of this BS happened and now look. And they want to surrender your sovereignty to the WHO.?? We better stop that or the new world order has taken over and no more rights snd freedom. With jackboots coming to check your vaccine records! So Biden doesn’t have to take the Blame!
If New Yorkers didn’t want the cost of groceries to increase, the cost of gasoline to increase, the cost of utilities to increase, the cost of automobiles to increase, the cost of houses to increase, the cost of insurance to increase etc, they shouldn’t have voted for democrats. It’s hard to have any sympathy for people who voted for democrats, considering the harm they have caused to American citizens. Democrats did this to their own babies.
Democrap terrorists are literally trying to kill American babies and the traitors are feeding the illegals instead. They are traitors to destroy their own country and someone needs to stop them now or we will all be starving to death just like liberals did to venezuela. Those people were eating their pets and garbage to survive. Why can’t you believe dems are just as evil or worse. They have already murdered millions.
Instead of importing the German fake formula created in a lab of a chemical/non-food concoction, why not just go down to the southern border and seize all but one pallet there…tell all the wetbacks to “just breastfeed” their infants…might even figure out if the infants really are their own.