Major supermarkets took advantage of supply chain disruptions to beat smaller rivals and protect their profits during the pandemic, according to a report released Thursday by the Federal Trade Commission.

The report found that some large companies “accelerated and distorted” the impact of supply chain disruptions, including by pressuring suppliers to favor them over competitors. Food and beverage retailers also posted strong profits during the height of the pandemic and continue to do so today, casting doubt on claims that higher grocery prices are simply keeping pace with retailers’ own rising costs, the authors reasoned .

“Some companies appear to have used rising costs as an opportunity to raise prices further to boost profits, and profits remain high even as pressure on the supply chain has eased,” the report said.

The publication of the report comes at a time when the FTC is cracking down on major supermarkets. Last month, the commission and several attorneys general filed a lawsuit seeking to block Kroger from completing its $25 billion acquisition of the Albertsons supermarket chain. They argued that the deal would weaken competition and likely result in consumers paying higher costs.

The independent federal agency’s actions have helped bolster the Biden administration’s efforts to tackle rising prices. In recent weeks, President Biden has taken a tougher stance on supermarket chains, accusing them of overcharging customers and making excessive profits. Although food prices are rising at a slower pace now, they have risen rapidly in 2022 and have not fallen overall. As a result, high food costs continued to put pressure on many consumers and posed a political problem for the government.

Mr Biden has also tried to tackle the problem by fixating on food companies, denouncing them for reducing pack sizes and portions of some products without lowering prices, a practice commonly called ‘shrinkflation’ named. During his State of the Union address earlier this month, Mr. Biden again called on snack companies to end the practice.

In its report, the FTC concluded that supply chain disruptions are not equally impacting companies across the food industry. Compared to larger companies, small supermarkets had more difficulty sourcing products during the pandemic.

“The FTC’s report examining the U.S. food industry’s supply chains finds that dominant companies have used this moment to get ahead at the expense of their competitors and the communities they serve,” said Lina Khan, FTC President , in a statement.

The report comes after the supervisor commissioned several companies at the end of 2021 to transfer ‘detailed information’ that would help shed light on the causes behind the supply chain problems and how business practices could have exacerbated the disruptions.

The report shows that major companies are pressuring suppliers to gain access to scarce products by imposing strict delivery requirements and threatening suppliers with large fines if they do not fulfill their orders. Because these measures helped major retailers increase their product inventory, they effectively helped them gain a competitive advantage over smaller rivals, the report said.

“In some cases, suppliers have preferentially allocated products to buyers, threatening to fine them,” the report said.

However, retailers did not have “unfettered discretion” to impose these fines because some suppliers had already established contractual requirements, according to the report.

FTC officials also argued that consumers continue to “face the negative impact of the pandemic’s price increases” as retailers’ profits remain high.

Based on public data on grocery retail profits, the FTC found that food and beverage retailers’ revenues accounted for 7 percent of total costs in the first three quarters of 2023. That was an increase from more than 6 percent in 2021 and the most recent peak of 5.6 percent in 2015.

“These increased profit levels warrant further investigation by the commission and policymakers,” the report said.

After the outbreak of the pandemic, the country’s food supply chain experienced massive disruptions. Households quickly moved away from eating at restaurants, and panicked shoppers stocked up on food, driving up demand for groceries. Workers became ill due to the coronavirus, putting pressure on the labor supply in supermarkets, warehouses and meat processing plants. Truck drivers, who were already in short supply before the pandemic, could not deliver fast enough. The convergence of these factors resulted in major product shortages and higher food costs.

At the end of 2021, there was an even bigger increase in food prices. As supply chain disruptions and labor shortages led to higher transportation and raw material costs, companies passed on cost increases for many products to consumers. In August 2022, food inflation peaked at 11.4 percent. Since then, food price increases have continued to cool. In March, food prices rose by 2.2 percent.

Companies across the industry have said they are planning smaller price increases this year, in part because some consumers have started to reduce their spending and cut back, which has caused some companies to see sales decline.

Today marks four years since Governor Gavin Newsom ordered all Californians to stay home to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. For many people, the drastic step was the moment the pandemic became terribly real.

Covid has since killed more than 1.18 million people nationwide, and the virus continues to circulate. At the height of the recent surge in January, 2,400 people were dying from the disease every week. For many Americans, the pandemic has permanently changed life, as my colleague Julie Bosman recently wrote.

Not all of these changes have been for the worse. Readers have recently written to me about the silver linings of the pandemic — ways in which, despite all the tragedy, Covid brought something unexpectedly positive into their lives. Those stories of reconnecting with distant friends, picking up new hobbies or slowing down for the better were moving. Thanks to all who submitted them.

Feel free to email me your own pandemic pandemic story at CAtoday@nytimes.com. Please include your full name and the city where you live.

Here are some, lightly edited:

“My adult son, who lives in Los Angeles, gathered his remote work tools and joined our family pod in Escondido. His sister, who was already planning a temporary move while her home was being renovated, packed up her husband, two small children and two dogs and moved in with us. This is where we all spent the first months of the pandemic. Three months. We never had that in the old days.” — Gretchen Pelletier, Escondido

“I am an autistic adult living in a society that is not meant for me. It was nice that the world was slowing down at a pace I was comfortable with. I also loved teaching remotely with my adult ESL [English as a second language] students. Even though I have to teach in person again, the techniques I used to guide students have now made me a better blended-hybrid teacher.” — Robert B. Gomez, Salinas

“My wife, Gloria, and I started walking around our neighborhood because of the health benefits. We met neighbors in their front yards as they sat or just stepped out of the house for a bit of fresh air. Until then, an annual neighborhood potluck in the fall was perhaps the only time we got together. But it didn’t take long before we got to know each other well enough to talk about birthday celebrations and job promotions, among other ordinary and extraordinary things. By the time Covid restrictions were lifted, our sense of community had grown exponentially. We often hear that it takes a village to raise a child. Apparently it took a pandemic to lift a community.” — Louie Vega, Bakersfield

“Zoom is a gift from heaven. Now that driving in the dark is a challenge, I can still attend meetings and meditation groups via Zoom. Without the pandemic, I would never have discovered this easy way to stay connected and engaged.” — Patti Breitman, Fairfax

“My partner of over 40 years and I had been living an independent life while away from home. When the lockdown happened, we weren’t used to spending so much time together. She was living with aggressive lung cancer. The intense time together between March and July 2020, when she died, was an enormous gift that we would never have given ourselves if it had not been forced on us. I’m grateful for it to this day.” — Debra Resnik, San Francisco

Tell us

We are in the process of putting together ours California soundtrack for years and have recorded most of the hits. Which songs do you think still need to be added?

Tell us at CAtoday@nytimes.com. Include your name, the city you live in, and a few sentences about why you think your song deserves to be included.

And before you go: good news

Four sea lion pups were released into the ocean off Los Angeles this month after months of rehabilitation. The Sacramento Bee reports this.

The baby sea lions were released on March 5 at Charlie Beach in Marina del Rey, drawing a crowd of more than 100 spectators who cheered as the animals waddled from the shore back to their ocean home.

Three of the sea lions were born last summer during a time when toxic algae blooms were spreading rapidly off the coast of Southern California, killing hundreds of sea lions and other marine animals.

The pups were found on the beaches of Malibu, Playa del Rey and Catalina Island, malnourished and separated from their mothers. They were rescued by the Marine Mammal Care Center, a nonprofit marine animal hospital, whose staff nursed the animals back to health. a video of the release posted on Facebook shows the four sea lions waddling across the beach towards the water.

Monday marks four years since the World Health Organization declared Covid a pandemic. Since then, millions of people around the world have died from the virus, and today the lingering impact of long Covid-19 is being studied and the latest variant to become dominant, JN.1, continues to spread in the United States.

Although the WHO dropped the designation of a global health emergency in May 2023, life still looks very different for many people than it did before March 2020, when most of the world went into lockdown for the first time in an attempt to to stop the spread of the virus.

We want to hear from you about your life. Doing Are there new considerations shaping your daily routine, or your decisions regarding friends and family? Has Covid changed your overall outlook?

A reporter may call you to follow up, but we will not publish any part of your response without contacting you first and we will never share your personal information publicly.

Remembering life in the early days of the pandemic shutdowns can feel like trying to conjure up an apocalyptic dream: the empty streets, the screeching ambulances, the sudden scramble to find toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

As the fourth anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic approaches, The Times wants to know: When did the pandemic hit for you? What do you remember thinking, feeling and seeing in those turbulent early days of March 2020? Do you still have photos on your camera roll of the first time you wore a mask, or went to work as an essential worker while the rest of the world hunkered down?

Perhaps you came to the realization that your usual routines and habits—going to the office, casual shopping, dining out with friends—were gone indefinitely. Or maybe the reality of the pandemic came about suddenly, when you or a loved one got sick.

If you would like to share a story, please complete the form below and tell us briefly about your experience. Your response may be used in a story about the anniversary of the pandemic.

Running a childcare business has long been a very challenging mathematical problem: many providers can barely afford to operate, yet many parents can’t afford to pay more.

There was temporary relief during the pandemic. The federal government $24 billion spent to keep the sector afloat. Many providers were paid thousands of dollars per month, depending on their size they used to pay costs, the largest of which was wages.

But that funding, which began in April 2021, expired in September. Five months later, the company is more precarious than ever.

In addition to the end of monthly checks, provider costs have risen along with inflation – for food, supplies and liability and property insurance. Rising wages in food service and retail jobs have made it harder to recruit workers in child care, one of the lowest-paying jobs in the country.

And families’ use of child care has changed, making it difficult for providers to maintain the required number of employees and earn a stable income. Some parents now make less consistent use of care because they work from home more often or are found alternative arrangementssuch as having relatives or nannies caring for children during the pandemic.

The result is a sector on the brink, new data shows.

In according to a study published on Sunday According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, more than half of the 3,815 child care owners or directors said they enrolled fewer children than they were licensed for. This was usually due to staff shortages; they said they couldn’t afford to pay workers more because parents couldn’t afford to pay more.

Half of providers said they had increased tuition. Of a broader group of more than 10,000 child care workers surveyed, 55 percent said they were aware of at least one program in their community that had been cut since federal funds expired.

Many parents feel the stress of rising costs and decreasing availability. Average is one recent research by Care.com Research shows that they spend a quarter of their income on child care (the Department of Health and Human Services). says for childcare to be affordable, it must cost no more than 7 percent of family income). A majority said tuition had risen and waiting lists had grown since funding ended.

Some have dipped into their savings or taken on more jobs to pay for care. Others have asked family or friends to care for their children, or have reduced their working hours to do so.

“As these funds disappear, programs that were barely holding together are being pushed over the edge of unsustainability,” said Elizabeth Ananat, an economist at Barnard College.

The Biden administration has done that asked Congress for $16 billion for a year of additional child care funding, and a group of Democratic senators has supported italthough it is unlikely to gain the Republican approval needed to pass.

In the meantime, some statesincluding some led by Republicans, have invested state funds to offset the loss of federal funds. For example, Vermont will spend $125 million a year on major expansions of subsidy eligibility for low-income families, and Kentucky will spend $50 million on subsidies after federal funds expire.

That’s not enough, says Sondra Goldschein, executive director of the political action committee of the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, which is spending $40 million to support President Biden and Democratic candidates who support child care. “We want child care to be seen as permanent infrastructure and we have made substantial investments in the sector at the federal level,” she said.

Subsidizing child care for most providers, as the administration did during the pandemic, or for most families, as the Biden administration failed to do in its welfare spending bill, is politically unlikely. Republicans did not support the bill’s family policies, including broadly subsidized child care and universal pre-K.

But there is support from it both parties for other ideas. One of those is increasing funding for the block grant that helps low-income families pay for child care. It received another $15 billion during the pandemic, but that expires this fall, and before that expansion it also served only 14 percent of eligible families. Another is giving employers tax breaks or other incentives to help employees pay for childcare.

Policies aimed at low-income families and focused on how child care employers are more likely to reach a bipartisan agreement, said Patrick Murray, vice president for government affairs at KinderCare, a chain of 2,300 child care centers, which the block grant worked. a policy advisor to former Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

This year has been the most challenging in three decades for Rebecca Davis, who runs an Arkansas child care center from her home in the Little Rock area.

She used to care for children from six weeks of age until they entered kindergarten, but turnover has increased since the pandemic. Taxes should be levied on the pandemic grant money.

Still, she can’t raise tuition: “It’s a catch-22: I would love to give my employees a stipend or an increase in their hourly wages, but I can’t because the costs of everything have gone up, and parents just can’t do it pay.”

After expenses—payroll, utilities, mortgage payments, food and supplies—Ms. Davis’ take-home pay is often about $2 per hour.

“You don’t make a living doing child care,” she said. “Why am I doing it? Because I love making a difference in a child’s life.”

Before the pandemic, Shineal Hunter, like her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother before her, worked in child care and ran a center for 55 children in Philadelphia. It focused on caring for children with behavioral problems and helping families find services such as housing or food assistance.

However, after the pandemic, the business became unsustainable, with rising costs, inconsistent footfall and staff shortages.

With the end of federal funding in sight, she closed her center.

“It’s heartbreaking that all the energy and effort I’ve had over the past 15 years, and the services provided in my community, are gone,” she said. “I think about the children who are now going to fall through the cracks.”

She looks after one child at her home, before and after school, and works part-time as a therapist. But she would like to return to childcare and is making plans to reopen.