We are starting to really feel the negative effects of the past two years, kicking off with the covid pandemic that shut down businesses and causing supply chain shortages, the Biden administrations complete incompetence has led us to one very serious shortage – baby formula.
Market supply of baby formula, according to the data, reveals that not only is the shortage getting worse – the southern states being especially affected – low-income families are bearing the brunt of Biden’s ridiculous leadership – or lack thereof.
Data was compiled from grocery, pharmacies and club store sales, which equates to around 80 percent of all baby formula sales.
The Wall Street Journal reported on the data, which it said was generated by the data research firm IRi:
Nationally, 23 percent of powdered baby formula was out of stock in the week ended May 22, compared with 21 percent during the previous week, according to the latest figures from market-research firm IRI. In the first week of January and before the recall of formula produced by Abbott Laboratories, 11 percent of powdered baby formula was out of stock because of pandemic-related supply-chain shortages and inflation. Before the pandemic, the normal out-of-stock range for powdered formula was 5 percent to 7 percent, according to IRI.
Some 1.6 million infants were eligible for WIC assistance as of 2019, the most recent year for which data were available. The program is designed to provide formula at no cost to families and positions the federal government as the largest purchaser of infant formula. About half of infant formula nationwide is purchased by participants using WIC benefits, according to the White House. More than 50 percent of infants born in Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana received WIC benefits in 2019, according to a WSJ analysis of census and U.S. Agriculture Department data.
The Wallstreet Journal also reported that states facing the worst shortages are Georgia, Kansas, Montana, Tennessee and Texas.
Abbott’s Similac has an exclusive contract with the federal nutrition program and is used in 34 states as well as the District of Columbia. This creates a monopoly in the market, and smaller formula companies are unable to compete on a national scale.
“The result is a marketplace with little competition and little flexibility, making it vulnerable if something goes wrong,” the article said.
The fact is that the Biden administration has known for months that there was a coming baby formula shortage, and they did nothing about it. Instead of trying to secure much needed supplies to feed American babies, Biden instead sent pallet loads of baby formula to the Mexican border.
This is unsurprising as Biden and his Democrat ilk will happily do anything to help anyone who is not an American, including sending billions of American taxpayer dollars to Ukraine while American babies starve, and low-income families fall further into poverty.
