# Price Gouging **Price gouging** is the practice of raising prices sharply on necessities during a disaster or shortage. There is no general federal prohibition; the law is almost entirely state law. A majority of states, along with the District of Columbia, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, prohibit it by statute or regulation. **Most of those prohibitions are dormant until a state of emergency is declared** — which makes a governor's declaration a private-law event as well as a governmental one: signing it changes what a merchant may lawfully charge a customer, and letting it lapse changes it back. Maine and Michigan are the notable exceptions, barring unconscionable or grossly excessive pricing without requiring a declaration. *(Congressional Research Service, R47072, updated 5 May 2026.)* Enforcement generally belongs to the **state attorney general**, separately elected in 43 states and not the governor's subordinate — so the lane is opened by one elected official and worked by another. The statutes vary widely in what counts as excessive: some name a percentage threshold above the pre-emergency price, others use an "unconscionable" standard decided case by case, and most carve out increases traceable to the seller's own higher costs. Economists divide on the laws, with a substantial literature arguing that price caps during shortages suppress the signal that draws supply in. The political salience runs the other way and the statutes have generally expanded. ## See also - [[State Emergency Powers Crosswalk]] · [[Plural Executive]] · [[Emergency Powers]]