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"I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel" — US cost of living has skyrocketed since 2020
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this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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Except it hasn't. Inflation-adjusted prices for commonly-referenced foodstuffs (eggs, milk, bacon, and coffee, for example) are actually steady since 1995.
Things feel expensive in part because human perception over time is a frail thing and we can remember (for example) that when we were younger, gas was $1.20 a gallon. Of course, that was when I was in high school and making minimum wage, which was $3.05. Adjusting both those to inflation (in 2023 dollars), that's $3.76 for the gas (spot on) and $9.95 for minimum wage (which is a bit short of the current federal of $~~7.29~~ $7.25 (typo) , although 29 states have set higher minima, the lowest of which is $9.95)
This isn't intended to make anyone feel any better. The big problem is the absolute insane record profits and consolidation of wealth into an equally insane number of billionaires. Those are the forces we should be lining up with knives and forks against.
And contrary to the "both sides" argument, there's one side that wants to take absolutely everything for themselves and create a Christo-fascist theocracy, continuing to hoard their gold like Smaug; and another that, while still upper class and definitely not perfect, does try reduce world suck. Choose wisely.
Edited to correct typo thanks for the correction
Your using “inflation adjusted” which imo does not work.
Let’s say something costs $10 and you earn $100 a day. Then inflation comes around and it’s now $13, but your wage is $110 now.
You can use the “inflation adjusted” values to argue that it’s always been $13 in today’s money. But it’s not longer 10% of your income.
Inflation adjusted values only work when wages also go up and down with the same rate, which is obviously not true and the crux of the issue.
That's why we have "real wages" statistic so you can do that comparison. Where you adjust wages for inflation in comparison to a set point in time so they are comparable.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart/
This chart only goes to 2019. Real wages did dip some during the corona virus pandemic as for a time inflation was out pacing wage increases. This has since reversed though, with wage growth outpacing inflation, and real wages are now higher than they were in 2019. Anchored to 1982-1984 dollars, in December 2019 real wages were $10.96 /hr, in October 2023 they were $11.05.
So yes, as of right now inflation that occured during the pandemic has been fully accounted for and then some by the total wage growth that occured during and since. Wage growth continues to out pace inflation, so hopefully things will continue to get better. That's not to say there hasn't been a persistent problem over decades of wages getting diluted. Real wages dropped significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, remained flat in the 90s and 00s, and only really began to recover after the financial crisis in 2008. Real wages are just catching up finally to where they used to be way back in the 1970s.
2023 real wages report https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/realer.pdf
2019 real wages report https://stats.bls.gov/news.release/archives/realer_01142020.pdf
Wage growth vs inflation: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
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This article is confusing as fuck. How can you use 2022 dollars "adjusted" and then claim there's no inflation. That's literally what that adjustment is for, to normalize prices for inflation over time.
Also it jokes eggs aren't crazy expensive but they've been up to comedy levels of pricey at least twice in 3 years due to avien flu.
There's no change in the inflation rate, not denying the fact that inflation exists. All he's saying is that it is not a parabolic increase, but a straight line.
Worth noting that how we calculate inflation itself has changed significantly though. https://www.shadowstats.com/article/no-438-public-comment-on-inflation-measurement
https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
First of all the comparisons are to 2019, not pre 1983 when those changes are made, so most of this is totally irrelevant to the point I was making. That's also why all the real wage statistics are anchored to 1982-1984 dollars. Second a forever unchanging fixed basket of goods is not a good way to measure inflation. What people spend their money on changes over time. Cell phones are necessary now, didn't used to be, shouldn't they be in the consumer price index? Internet is necessary now, those costs should be in the index. The same things that were necessary in 1975 are not the exact same things people are buying now. Using the exact same basket of goods from 1975 would be ridiculous and not useful. Another frequent criticism is that housing prices aren't included after 1983. The reasoning being that is an investment, not an expense that you will never get back. However rent is, and the increased housing cost ends up reflected in the rent. So that change doesn't change the index nearly as much as you might think.
Lots more details here if you're interested:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/24/technology/inflation-measure-cpi-accuracy.html
Or archived version
https://archive.is/zvtPw
All this is to say, I'm highly suspicious of this sudden narrative across the entire media that the economy is in shambles and everyone is struggling, when almost all measures are to the contrary. I'm expecting migrant caravans and all sorts of other sensationalized non stories with only some kernel of truth on the way. And a headline "prices didn't increase from September to October" gets nowhere near as many clicks as "inflation was 3.2% in October," even if technically true, taking advantage of misconceptions about what an annualized rate is.
This concept needs to spread. Those record profits and the consolidation of wealth is a real-life exploit (a hack) of capitalism. These types of situations were never intended by the visionaries that designed capitalism. This entire clusterfuck of 1% having 99% of the money was never intended by design, nor seemed like a plausible situation to need to design protections for when the economy started getting destroyed by this situation. As the sickness of greed among policymakers grew, they punched holes in the system in order to exploit the mechanics of the capitalism to collect virtually limitless money while simultaneously denying other less privileged people not "in the know" the chance to do the same.
Does anyone remember the original Super Mario Brothers, where you could get crowns, basically giving you more lives than you could possibly use? These capitalist hackers found a way to get crowns at the expense of the 99%, and nobody has any clue or organized any way to stop this hack/exploit from ruining it for everyone else.
Capitalism has been hacked. If the system administrators don't manually intervene and redistribute wealth, we are just going to keep circling the drain until it's all over like a game of Monopoly where everyone except one entity is completely bankrupt.
The purpose of a system is what it does
Ever since they got us to come out of the fields and into the factories, the point has always been about a class war against the poor. To act otherwise is to ignore history.
Small correction - federal minimum wage is $7.25, not $7.29
That four cents makes a difference
Agree with you, real wages have stagnated, and so have real prices.
However, one thing that bothers me, and that I'd like to know, is what does it mean to "eat the rich"? "Eat" in what sense? Destroy? Take all their money? Because why are people so angry, that someone else is doing better than them? Is it some form of jealousy? Idk. What people should be looking at, IMO, is how they themself are doing. Are they doing ok? If not, then we have a problem. But why do they care whether somebody else has a lot of money? I seriously don't get it.