Expand the consumer welfare standard beyond price
What the document says“the consumer welfare standard must guide FTC action, but, in appropriate situations and with strong evidence, this standard must be expanded to include more factors than just price.”
The consumer welfare standard asks whether conduct harms consumers, in practice mostly through higher prices. The chapter asks that the same standard of proof used to show harm to competition also apply to the efficiencies offered to justify a practice, and separately says the agency must consider the role of government itself in maintaining market concentration, since compliance costs favor large firms.
What the document actually says“the consumer welfare standard must guide FTC action, but, in appropriate situations and with strong evidence, this standard must be expanded to include more factors than just price.”
Keep judging by harm to shoppers. But weigh more than price alone.
Antitrust asks whether shoppers are harmed. In practice that means higher prices. The book says other harms should count too.
The chapter records that conservatives disagree about the agency's role at the most basic level. It asks directly whether the Commission should enforce antitrust or even continue to exist, and notes that some conservatives think antitrust enforcement should sit solely with the Department of Justice.
Read against the documents indexed here on August 26, 2026, and nothing was found that answers this. Nothing indexed states or revises the standard the FTC applies. EO 14366 of December 11, 2025 comes nearest in substance: it directs the FTC to investigate practices that harm consumers by undermining their ability to make informed choices and by diminishing the value of their investments, which are theories of harm that do not run through price. But the order names no standard, says nothing about the evidence required to prove harm or to credit a claimed efficiency, and does not touch the chapter's separate point about compliance costs and the government's own role in market concentration. EO 14254 of March 31, 2025 directs the FTC toward ticket price transparency and price gouging, which is the price-centered application the chapter wants expanded beyond, not an expansion of it. That is a record of a search, not a finding that nothing has happened: an act this site does not hold, or one that answers the proposal in words unlike its own, would not be caught by it.