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Inflation is cooling, yet many Americans say they're living paycheck to paycheck

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/17601144

Even as inflation continues to cool into the second half of 2024, many Americans say they’re still struggling to make ends meet.

Roughly one-third of U.S. workers say they’re living paycheck to paycheck and have nearly no money for savings after paying their monthly bills, according to a survey from personal finance website Bankrate.

amanda ,
@amanda@aggregatet.org avatar

What kills me is that the economics of this are completely backwards. The playbook were following is supposed to work like this:

  • salaries go up, which increases prices (since salaries are part of the price), which leads to higher wage demands which leads to higher wages because unions are strong and able to negotiate
  • the central banks raise interest rates, which cause people to have less money to spend and companies to have less money to invest; this decreases spending and generally winds down the economy, usually by making people unemployed, which decreases bargaining power of unions and thus stops salary increases.

However, what we have is an external price shock situation plus simple price gouging. Salaries don’t drive inflation because the unions are pretty much busted at this point. So raising interest rates only increases the cost of living (and the profits of banks).

What you’d need is a way to do investment that would fix the energy crisis (massive investment in renewables at a scale that can only be done by a state), handling the supply chain issues caused by various wars (don’t have a solution to that one except “beat Russia I guess”), and curbing greedflation (tighter regulation and trustbusting the various suppliers and retailers in the food market, most of whom are monopolies or monopsonies).

The EU also has a specific situation where the energy market is fucked mostly because Germany decided to get all their energy as fossil fuels from Russia, a decision that as bad then and catastrophic now. For reasons of EU nonsense this has made energy prices surge everywhere in the union.

Basically, the people in charge of the economy looked at their one remaining lever of control and went “sure this isn’t the fix for this situation but let’s do it; it’s our only option”. It’s infuriating.

DrSleepless ,

Price gouging is still happening though

Aceticon ,

If prices go back down, it’s Deflation the opposite of Inflation.

Inflation “cooling down” is not the opposite of Inflation, it’s merely less of it, or in other words prices going up but not as fast as before.

If people are crushed by the rise in living cost from previous high Inflation, less Inflation by itself will do nothing at all to solve their problem and in fact it will crush them some more, it’s just that the increase in crushing won’t be as fast as with higher Inflation.

There are only two ways of them to be less crushed: either Deflation (i.e. prices actually go down) or their incomes increase (which for most people means their salaries go up).

cheese_greater ,

Why is deflation always so vigorously opposed by all sides. Why is it (deflation) so unthinkable/verboten?

Aceticon ,

The theory is that if prices are going down people will just delay their purchases waiting for better prices, so in aggregate they’ll consume less, though this of course only applies to things people don’t actually need immediately, so food prices or rents going down would have no such effect.

People not consuming as much is bad for a Consumer Society. However, one should ponder further on whether the Consumer Society itself is a good thing or a bad thing, especially in light of the Ecological damage its doing, that the infinity growth of Revenue it aims for is Mathematically impossible and that what it’s mostly achieving in the era of automation is to move more and more of the resources into the hands of fewer and fewer people.

Maybe people being desincentivised from buying on impulse lots of things they don’t need would be a good thing, even if the Owner Class would be unhappy for not making as many billions.

PunnyName ,

It’s not inflation if companies post record profits.

Reverendender ,

Not with that attitude

/s

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

The economy is doing great. Stock prices are up. Corporate profits are through the roof. Housing investments are more valuable than ever…

What do you mean you’re “not a shareholder”?

Aceticon ,

It’s a good time to be a member of the Owner Class!

For the rest, it’s probably the worst time since the days of the Robber Barons…

Lost_My_Mind ,

We were living paycheck to paycheck BEFORE the inflation. Now we’re just NOT buying food. Or maybe skipping auto insurance.

People want to know why the PS5 isn’t getting the amount of people buying it that the PS4 had? It’s because the games look 90% as good on the PS4, they already have the PS4, and the PS5 costs $500 at a time when $5 would be a hard sell.

Taco night is just GONE from our lives. You have to buy so many ingredients. Ramen noodles is like a dollar per pack, and that’s it.

This is like saying “Well the bleeding seems to have stopped from where this guy was stabbed in the chest by spears 175 times.” Yeah, the bleeding may have stopped, but the guy’s still dead and unable to do anything about the fact that he was already stabbed.

skeezix ,

Have you tried not being poor?

LordKitsuna ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/93bbd3c4-2d6e-4b00-b77a-c6d1ba2396ad.gif

reallykindasorta ,

Your comment made me wonder about ramen inflation which I couldn’t find immediately but I found an article talking about noodle sales increasing 17% from 2018 to 2021 which…. does not sound like good news.

MindTraveller ,

To play devil’s advocate, maybe part of the increase is explained by Shin Ramyun becoming more popular.

TommySoda ,

I never stopped living paycheck to paycheck since I turned 18 back in the early 2010’s. None of these people even realize just how shitty it is, and has been, for the last 20 years. You ever had to use a fucking credit card to pay rent just to keep a roof over your head because you couldn’t get to either one of your 2 jobs because your car broke down? I did about 8 years ago and I’m still paying it off. If I have any kind of emergency, whether it’s medical or otherwise, I am completely fucked financially.

Krauerking ,

Personal tip. Don’t close your credit card after you fill it up on rent and trying to stay alive because it ruins your ability to get any other credit card for years. I had to get a card that has a $500 annual fee because I was flagged as a risk because I asked for my card to be cancelled so I could pay it off without fear of adding more to it.

This was also during my time where I only slept 2 days a week from my 3 jobs and school so I was definitely not entirely coherent. Couldn’t even reopen the card later.

Honestly since 2008 it’s been about cheapening the experience of being alive or getting cheaper people with no respite for anyone. We can’t all start doing better or the rich feel less rich and we see what happens when they raise the ladder with them.

I just emptied out my 401k cause I will never need it and it will never be enough seeing how the act of retirement always seems to be a rising level too.

nbailey ,
@nbailey@lemmy.ca avatar

Well, yeah. The rate of increases is slowing, but prices are still high. There isn’t, and won’t be, deflation, that’s a catastrophically bad long term economic effect (at least, according to economists)

Cagi ,

Only within capitalism, where the myth of eternal growth is a central pillar.

reallykindasorta ,

Yeah, and for stability under capitalism it is indeed a necessity rather than a myth. We really need to wean ourselves from this market mediation (even if it’s too late to save ourselves there’s honor in the attempt).

Cornelius_Wangenheim ,

There actually was deflation last month. Only -0.1%, but it still counts.

Reverendender ,

Ya. Cuz food and rent are still being usuriously price gouged, new jobs don’t pay well and you will probably be laid off in six months, and raises have been for shit if you even got any, so if banks can lend money at slightly better rates, it’s not really helping regular people in any appreciable way. The word “inflation” is rapidly losing any meaning.

skeezix ,

How do you expect the CEO to buy a new yacht with you bickering about greedflation.

Yewb ,

They literally changed the calculations multiple times to soften the blow excluding many high inflation sectors.

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