A staggering 80% of American households are financially worse off than they were before COVID-19

Don't forget about the absolutely massive wealth transfer that happened: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/16/richest-1percent-amassed-almost-two-thirds-of-new-wealth-created-since-2020-oxfam.html

This isn't inflation. This is greed. Record profits with soul crushing wages. Governments that allow this are complicit. We need heavy windfall taxes

Those are here for the same reason...

People act like inflation is the invisible hand of the market, this is capitalism, companies will charge whatever they want to maximize profits, and that rarely results in a lower price.

Like, if you made thingamajigs, and if you made as many as you could (10 million) and sold as much as you could to saturate the market and end up making 10 million, that's less profit than if you charged $5 a piece and only sold 2 million. Same income, much lower overhead.

So you cut staffing and make 1/5th of what you can because that maximizes profit.

Which is fine until your thingamajig is something that people need like food, water, or shelter. If you're putting profit over production, then people who can't afford it have to go without.

It's literally what's going on with insulin. This is t a hypothetical, this is what's been happening for a long time.

It's just with the same few giant corporations making everything, if just one does, the other 2-4 giant corporations crunch the same numbers and come up with the same plan.

Something that used to be called price fixing is suddenly just "internal analytics"

I could have bought a decent house alone, albeit uncomfortably. But I was happy enough in my condo. Now I have a wife and dual income, and we'd have to really stretch for a shitty house on the outskirts. And neither of our wages have changed much.

Wages are not stagnant.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

You can see rising median wages for several decades. The covid stimuluses caused a bump but cant expect that level of government spending forever.

I am reminded of that quote along the lines of “it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.” I did everything right, and had a more than adequate emergency fund.

But then my house vaporized that emergency fund… and only then did COVID happen and I lost my job twice. So that’s roughly three “holy shit thank god we saved for a rainy day” events in three years.

I’m sure I will be in “just save money” mode some day in the future. Lots of shit left to clean up right now though.

If you stop eating Starbucks and drinking avocado toasts, you will be fine

Ok, yeah! I’ll just set aside the (checks notes) almost nothing I have left after food, rent, utilities, gas, and my exactly two streaming services.

Man, some of them have had to delay that second private jet purchase until next year.

Speaking of, where did that money come from?

Did they just print it?

Weird how when it comes to helping the working class, taxing the rich is never an option. But when it comes to helping the ruling class, you can tax the working class and print money.

Don't feel like you have to do without just because you're smart enough not to subscribe!

You can stream pretty much anything for free here: https://fmoviesz.to/

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if your cars are totaled one day, definetely buy a toyota made around 2000-2015. those things are modern but still indestructible. (but definetely don't cheap out on maintenance, oil is especially important)

lol cars are really expensive

There was an (executive order ?) during covid where you weren't allowed to receive a large bill from medical emergencies and be required to pay it, if you had insurance.

Have you heard of/looked into this?

They could send a bill, but they would call it 'an accident', and then ask if you wanted to pay it out of the kindness of your heart. If you don't, they just write it off on their books and call it a day.

Source: happened to me

Moving forward, do you think you will save up more in an emergency fund than you did previously?

After buying kayaks with their COVID checks, their outdoor gear addiction has spiraled out of control

They are living out of them.

They are part of the 20%

The kayaks probably survived their chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. (jk)

I took it as they are going up Shit Stream and are about to lose their paddles. 🤣

Rent price coordinator website says I can get $6,922/month for my shed that's partially submerged, I'll be fair and ask $6,900/month as that's a nicer number!

/s

Increasing the money supply would have been fine if it had gone into working people's pockets, infrastructure, jobs, housing, and other productive uses. But yeah, when it's just pumped into the stock market or funneled through business via PPP then, go figure, the rich get richer while everyone else suffers.

1 billionaire is too many billionaires

rather negligent of the article to ignore inflation

Also, while we note that high prices hurt directly, in major ways the Fed's response to that (it's been raising interest rates to reduce the money supply) is a major source of the pain associated with the high prices/price gouging we're calling inflation.

Higher interest rates mean higher mortgage payments (or rent pressure), etc. This way, price gouging leads to higher profits, and if you hold bonds, also higher profits there- while consumers of those things are doubly-fucked

I didn't find "PPP" in that article, but I'm guessing those loans helped fuel that fire?

That number is very misleading.

That's the average salary needed to afford the average home.

But the average home in Miami or San Francisco is much more expensive than the average home in Wichita. And while prices are inflating everywhere, that does not mean you can't afford a home without earning that much. The only thing that number tells you is that you need to earn more today than you did ten years ago.

I would talk to a bank about what kind of loan you can qualify for, and assume you can afford about half of that. Because they'll absolutely lend you more than you can reasonably afford.

Compost, grow, consume. Give the earth its tithe.

It doesn't make that claim. It's just that if you were wealthy between 2020 and now you can more easily navigate the price hikes by refinancing during the housing boom, sellings off assets, and shifting investments around.

But people in lower incomes don't even have assets/savings to fall back on so they just lose harder when the prices hike.

Yeah. Redistributes from the poorest to the richest.

I think some people, myself included, managed to stay stable, so that's probably a big chunk of it. I got a new job in June 2020 that was enough of a raise to make up for inflation, so while I'm not ahead of where I was 3 years ago, I was at least in the same mediocre position I started in. That said, I've had $3k in dental bills since July because dental insurance is pretty much a scam, soooo I'm now officially fucked, but I was doing ok.

People like me and my wife. Wife is in healthcare and I am in automation. Wife gets as much overtime as she wants and I got several pay raises as suddenly companies found that they couldn't depend on just buying the same things forever and ran out of workers.

Oh don't worry I am sure the boot is ready to crush us both like a bug. Just ignoring us for the time being.

I may be a 1%er in this context. 49 at the start, had just scored a job paying double salary and benefits both (<-worked hard for this bit, for many years), Habitat for Humanity mortgage (no interest or land taxes), all that.

COVID killed mom (grandma really), got some inheritance, bought a couple of acres of swamp. It's mine and I play there every weekend. Long story, but the land is a big deal in my life.

Went nuts buying stuff I always wanted and couldn't afford before inflation really set in. I wouldn't/couldn't buy most of that stuff at these prices.

And now I'm about to get paid on the last of the inheritance and pay my little house off.

I know this sort of comment isn't welcome, but you asked. Dumb luck mostly, and I recognize that.

And speaking of dumb luck, I'm getting married in 2-weeks to the finest woman I've ever met. (OK. I made a LOT of effort, but still, lots of luck as well) Been with a lot of women, so I've failed a lot, not this time. She's gushing to her Filipina friends ATM. I don't speak Tagalog or I might relate a bit of the conversation, all sounds good though. (Nothing private of course.)

A lot of us in healthcare stayed pretty stable. I don't know of any that did "better", but other than elective stuff, day to day dropped only a little. About 9-10% of Americans are in healthcare. I do know a lot of delivery services did well too.

So my wife and I are one of them. I'll call it as it is, we got lucky, and both work in tech.

Now that said, I "rent" (rent in quotes because the amount is almost exactly what the increase in food costs was) out a room to a good friend because she was struggling, and just last week got another friend couch surfing for who knows how long until she can get her feet under her.

Who are these 20%ers?

LOL, which income quintile do you think?

Well if your income increased more than inflation you might be fine. For my family this was the case and we have a fixed income mortgage as well so our expenses as a whole have gone up a lot less than inflation. I think this is true for a substantial minority of people.

Spending an extra 8% on groceries just means a bit less to savings? IDK, I kind of feel like the opposite. Economic dooming ahead of an election is as natural as the sunrise, especially when there's a Democrat in office.

I cut my pizza into 100 slices today instead of 8, but I don't feel more full for some reason. Where could all my slices have gone?

What do you mean? The GDP has only grown (save for like 2-3 quarters).

The rich just saw their chance to become even richer and widen the wealth gap.

Maybe average parents shouldn't have had kids to not supply another wage slave to the system?

I'm in the same boat. Making more money than last year but I'm still down anyway because my dollar doesn't go very far.

I got a nice bump in salary every year, and then my taxes picked up and it's all gone. I literally made 1% more than I did four years ago.

I'm seriously considering jumping ship, as it's the only way to truly increase a salary in my industry.

there is SO much money, as Levene in Glengarry Glen Ross says, "Just lying on the ground!"

However, we only allow certain people (businesses) to pick it up. We could give it to poor people and let the support of Ukraine continue. But we don't. Because we ideologically have the position that businesses are people, and more important people than people people.

All it takes is the admission that "line go up" could be "line go up a little bit less steeply" and we can do it.

But no, the steepness of the line is more important than anything else.

Sending money is Israel = completely utterly worthless

Sending money to Ukraine = potentially staving off or preventing WW3

I'm better off, but not by much. I'm working from home now so that helps. I spend less on gas and work clothes (since I'm mostly dressy casual now instead of dress clothes/shoes). I'm also spending less on food because COVID forced me to get serious about meal planning. (Every trip to the store was a possible exposure so I had a big incentive to get everything I needed, and only what I needed, get out, and not return until next week.

That being said, I'm also facing prices that have risen about as fast as my salary - if not faster. I'm also getting to that age where retirement isn't some nebulous future concept. I'm likely going to want to retire in 25 years or so, but I'm not anywhere close to having enough money. Nor can I afford to put away what I should be putting away.

I'm living somewhat comfortably (if frugally) today, but one major medical issue or job loss and I'll be in serious financial difficult. And if things don't improve significantly for me soon, I'll be working until I die.

I think the biggest factor is probably the hyper inflationary period we're exiting (have exited?) which many companies used as an excuse to jack up prices much further than they needed to. Anyone who did not receive a raise in the last 24-36 months has effectively received a 10-20% paycut.

I can feel it in my own families finances. I went back to college and now make as much as my wife and I did combined in 2020 while my wife is now a stay at home mom and the money isn't stretching as far as it was in 2020. On the upside my income ceiling is now significantly higher than it was, and my wife wants to start working again once the kids are in school

I'm sure we're all just eating to much avocado toast and eating out too often.

I'm surprised more people aren't charmed by the regurgitated WSJ™ propaganalysis and smug victim act.

Evidence shows the government stimulus contributed to only a small portion of the inflation, and the largest portion stemmed from companies using inflation as an excuse to raise prices. I mean, have you looked at individual candy bar prices? They went from under $2 each to over $3 within the last 24 months! Individual soda bottles are getting close to $3 each as well, and don't get me started on the cost of bags of chips. These are discretionary items and treats that saw a significant jump in price very recently that was far larger than inflation. I'm pretty frugal and my regular bi-weekly(ish) grocery bill has grown from ~$70 to ~$110 in the same period, a growth rate about inline with inflation, but when you look at individual items prices you can see a clear predatory "inflation adjustment"

Why has inflation been worse in other developed countries that did not "print money" then?