On Sunday, I wrote about how Joe Biden’s pre–Super Bowl complaint about shrinkflation made no sense. Ryan Bourne of the Cato Institute has added another angle on his Substack: Shrinkflation probably helps Biden.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the consumer-price index by tracking the prices of a basket of goods representative of purchases Americans likely make. “In reality, tracking and adjusting for shrinkflation can be complex, as it requires constant monitoring of product changes in the market and changing weights of consumer spending baskets,” Bourne writes. “While the BLS makes efforts to account for these changes, it may not capture all instances of shrinkflation, potentially underestimating the true inflation rate experienced by consumers.”

Whether the CPI nails inflation or not, Biden should be grateful for shrinkflation, Bourne argues:

If the CPI isn’t accurately capturing shrinkflation, then the real story here is: “measured inflation has been underestimated – inflation has been worse than has been widely reported during Biden’s time as President!” This doesn’t seem like a message Biden would want to propagate, particularly in an election year.

If, on the other hand, inflation has been measured correctly, Biden’s critique implies he’d have preferred businesses to overtly raise package prices rather than shrink their size. Not only does this presume he knows better than the businesses how best to deal with an inflationary environment (including consumers’ sensitivity to price changes), it would almost certainly have made food price inflation even more salient with consumers than it already has been. Again, not great for Biden’s popularity or re-election prospects.