Active watches
No watches are active right now. When a state declares an emergency, its watch appears here with pre-emergency fair ranges for repair work.
How price-gouging laws work
Most states have a law against price gouging, and in most of them it switches on only when a state of emergency is declared. The details differ from state to state, including which goods and services are covered, how long the protection lasts and what counts as excessive.
North Carolina is a good example. Its law takes effect when a state of emergency is declared, and it covers repairs in a storm's aftermath as well as gas, food and hotel rooms. It doesn't set a fixed percentage; it bars prices that are "unreasonably excessive under the circumstances," and businesses can still pass along genuine cost increases.
Where the index helps: a law that asks whether a price is excessive needs a sense of what normal looks like. The index publishes normal for the Core 8 trades in every state, every day, before anything happens.
If you think you're being gouged
- Get the price in writing, or take a photo of the posted price.
- Look up the job on the free lookup and note where the price falls compared to the fair band.
- Report it to your state attorney general's consumer protection office. In North Carolina, that's 1-877-5-NO-SCAM or ncdoj.gov/pricegouging. Other states: find your attorney general.
The Fair Rate Index publishes reference prices. We don't decide whether any business broke the law, and a price above the band isn't proof of gouging; that's for your attorney general to investigate. This page isn't legal advice.
For attorneys general and newsrooms
We'll share pre-emergency fair ranges for any state or county, free, for consumer-protection and public-information use. Write to hello@fairrateindex.com, or pull the numbers yourself from the open data.