Voters Blame Price Gouging for Higher Car Prices

By Abby Springs

Purchasing a car has never been easy, but after the pandemic hit in 2020, new and used car prices reached record highs. While prices have dropped slightly this year, the average price of a new car sits at $48,763, which is $11,000 more than the pre-pandemic price. 

A new Data for Progress survey finds that voters place significant blame for higher car prices on price gouging. Forty-three percent of likely voters say they place “a great deal” of blame on auto dealerships trying to make a bigger profit, while 33% say the same for supply chain disruptions and increased labor and manufacturing costs. Only 18% say they place a great deal of blame on high consumer demand. 

To help bring down the costs of new and used automobiles, the FTC has announced a new rule to crack down on excessive or hidden fees when purchasing a car. The rule requires car dealerships to disclose all of the necessary and optional add-on costs upfront, and bans fees for add-on products and services that provide no consumer benefits. 

We find that 74% of voters support this proposed rule, including 79% of Democrats, 72% of Independents, and 70% of Republicans.

The findings align with previous survey results from Data for Progress, which find that voters want to rein in corporate price gouging and ban junk fees. 

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Abby Springs (@abby_springs) is the Press Secretary at Data for Progress.

Survey Methodology

From December 9 to 10, 2023, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,220 U.S. likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.