Kroger and Albertsons are planning what would be the biggest supermarket merger in U.S. history.

The two companies say the $24.6 billion deal would let them better compete with supercenters, dollar stores and club, discount and online rivals. But the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal in February, warning the combination would reduce competition, raise grocery prices for millions of Americans and diminish working conditions for employees.

Here’s how the merger could affect you, your local store and, ultimately, your grocery bill – and why so many government officials want to stop it.

Why do Kroger and Albertsons want to merge?

Competition. Yes, the very thing the FTC says this merger threatens is the primary reason Kroger and Albertsons cited when the deal was announced in October 2022.

“The grocery market is far more diverse, far more competitive … than the grocery market described by the FTC,” said Scott Moses, the head of grocery, pharmacy and restaurant investment banking at Solomon Partners.

While many regional grocery chains have been absorbed by Kroger and Albertsons over the past few decades, there’s been a proliferation of other options, including Amazon, Costco, Walmart, Lidl, Aldi, Trader Joe’s, Dollar Tree and Dollar General. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

“We all shop at five or six stores regularly,” said Moses, who was retained by Albertsons to educate audiences on the grocery industry.

Walmart, the nation’s largest food seller, took in $324 billion in grocery sales in 2023, or roughly a third of the $1 trillion U.S. market. Kroger was No. 2 with $113 billion in revenue, while Albertsons ranked fourth with $65 billion – a tie with Amazon, which includes its subsidiary Whole Foods.

Would a merger make my groceries more expensive?

It depends on whom you ask. Regulators say a combined Kroger-Albertsons would eliminate competition and reduce pressure to lower grocery prices, which have jumped about 21 percent since July 2020.

They also claim it would increase the risk of price fixing and price gouging: Many policymakers and think tanks say the big-box chains and supermarket giants leverage their scale to get better deals from suppliers but then keep prices artificially high.

Consumer prices, particularly those tied to food and housing, are a big theme in the 2024 presidential campaign. Earlier this month, Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on price gouging in the food and grocery sectors. Since the pandemic, the major chains have been operating at the highest profit margins on groceries in two decades, the White House Council of Economic Advisers said earlier this year.

Kroger emphatically disagrees. It recently announced plans to lower grocery prices by $1 billion after the merger goes through. The retailer says it has invested more than $5 billion in price cuts over the past two decades and that it has reduced its profit margin far more than its competitors.

Will my store close?

No, according to the supermarket chains. But depending on the location, it may look a little different.

Kroger and Albertsons, which have 2,750 and more than 2,200 stores, respectively, plan to sell 576 stores in 18 states and the District to C&S Wholesalers, a supplier to independent grocery stores and owner of a retail pharmacy and 23 supermarkets under the Piggly Wiggly and Grand Union banners. The $2.9 billion deal includes stores under Albertsons’s Safeway, Carrs, Pavilions and Haggen banners and Kroger’s Harris Teeter, Mariano’s and QFC banners.

Here is a list to see if your local supermarket will be sold if the merger goes through.

Depending on where you live, your store could be renamed under one of C&S’s store banners. But Albertsons stores in California and Wyoming will keep the Albertsons brand name, and locations in Arizona and Colorado will keep the Safeway brand name.

How will the deal affect workers?

Again, it depends whom you ask. Assuming Kroger and Albertsons stay true to their promise to not shut down stores, workers will keep their jobs.

But the FTC said the merger would undermine labor unions and weaken their leverage when negotiating new contracts. Grocery workers face “the threat of their wages dwindling, benefits diminishing, and their working conditions deteriorating,” Henry Liu, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a February news release reporting the lawsuit.

Kroger and Albertsons said that won’t be the case, noting they are among the few grocery retailers with unionized workers. Moses said the merged company will honor “all the collective bargaining agreements, and those have got industry-leading health care and pension benefits.” He added: “They’re investing $1 billion in better wages, $1.3 billion in better stores.”

What happens next?

That’s an open question. Kroger has mounted an aggressive defense. On Aug. 19, it sued the FTC for taking the company to two separate courts: the federal court in Portland for the preliminary injunction and to its in-house administrative court to review the case.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, contends the review in administrative court is unconstitutional and seeks to have it halted. Legal experts characterized the move as an extraordinary attempt to interrupt the FTC’s enforcement powers; it is based on a recent Supreme Court decision that limited the use of in-house legal proceedings at the Securities and Exchange Commission.