ByteOnBikesEggs are still double from last year. Gas is still rising. I paid $3 for $1.25 cookie mix.
No inflation and price still the same would be true. But no more inflation doesn’t cancel out previous inflation, it just means its not getting any worse. Your quality of life has fallen, it will now remain this bad for a little while before dropping again shortly.
I can’t eat stock so that is useless.
inflation also increased wages substantailly. if you didn’t get an increase you should have changed jobs to get one. 5 years ago things were cheaper sure, but mc donlands wasn’t paying 15-20/hr 6 years ago either, it was more like 10.
Of course not everyone got that raise, plenty of places are still paying those low wages but working people still have to eat inflation. And if you’re on a fixed income from a pension or social security you’re hosed.
my mom is on ss and her payment went up like 20% in '23
Unless wage growth outpaces inflation, those wage increases don’t actually improve quality of life.
www.statista.com/…/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
wage growth has exceeded inflation the past 2 years.
Many of us are struggling and there are no jobs around that pay over $40 an hour, these types of statistics are useless for the regular working american. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living at all.
I understand that. Sounds like you have to move then.
Averages and pretty pictures are nice, but context matters. From that page you just linked:
Despite the level of wage growth reaching 6.7 percent in the summer of 2022, it has not been enough to curb the impact of even higher inflation rates. The federally mandated minimum wage in the United States has not increased since 2009, meaning that individuals working minimum wage jobs have taken a real terms pay cut for the last twelve years. There are discrepancies between states - the minimum wage in California can be as high as 15.50 U.S. dollars per hour, while a business in Oklahoma may be as low as two U.S. dollars per hour. However, even the higher wage rates in states like California and Washington may be lacking - one analysis found that if minimum wage had kept up with productivity, the minimum hourly wage in the U.S. should have been 22.88 dollars per hour in 2021. Additionally, the impact of decreased purchasing power due to inflation will impact different parts of society in different ways with stark contrast in average wages due to both gender and race.
Wage growth exceeding inflation for a bit recently doesn’t make up for the preceding decades of wage stagnation, and even if it did, wages still haven’t grown fast enough in the past few years to catch up to inflation. So my original point still stands - unless wage growth outpaces inflation, it doesn’t actually lead to an improvement in quality of life.
wage growth isn’t universal or even, in some industries it exploded, in others it has gone negative.
if you want higher wages you have to move jobs or locations. that’s always been true of american life.
Why shouldn’t teachers make a livable wage? Why shouldn’t the minimum wage be a livable wage? What do you think the term “minimum wage” originally meant?
Make your definitive and sweeping statements if you want, but all it’s showing is that you don’t understand economics or history.
they should, but they don’t. you can’t build a future on what should be. you build it on what is.
j
You don’t live in reality if you think the current minimum wage has kept up with the amount of inflation since it’s inception. You don’t live in reality if you think the minimum wage isn’t supposed to be enough to provide the “minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being”. That quote is from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 btw, the thing that establishes a federal minimum wage.