There Is Shadow Inflation Taking Place All Around Us

nytimes.com

29 points·mariojv··6 comments

If you're a government, you have an incentive to cook the books and make sure the official numbers lowball the inflation people actually experience.

That way, you can dismiss and gaslight people when they try to tell you that real wages have declined, especially for the middle class.

I agree with the general premise of the article, but

> Customer sentiment on restaurant cleanliness fell 4.2 percent this year

This is almost certainly due to heightened expectations after the initial phase of covid where people thought the disease spread through transmission from surfaces, and the norm in most of the service industry in 2020 was to keep things visibly shiny clean.

> This is almost certainly due to heightened expectations after the initial phase of covid where people thought the disease spread through transmission from surfaces, and the norm in most of the service industry in 2020 was to keep things visibly shiny clean.

Or it’s almost certainly from the service industry being understaffed post-covid.

I’ve talked with proprietors in the US and Europe, and it’s common to hear you just can’t find people to work these jobs right now. One hotel manager was now doing food service, some laundry, and some cleaning.

Where I lived a lot of the service industry was closed most of 2020 / it was open but no one went in, but it was the first year where I saw widespread hygiene issues at supermarkets, commonly finding out of date or spoiled food.

A good example of this is Statbucks started charging for cream cheese with bagels, when previously it was included.

This, in theory, is why there are hedonic adjustments.

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