Additionally, increased spending can be a symptom of inflation as consumers rush to buy goods where prices lag.
That was not the point I was trying to make. I'll try again:
* Self-identified GOPers (supposedly) think it is worse now than when economy was tanking and hemorrhaging 800K jobs per month. What planet are they living on if they honestly think this is true?
* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA
Inflation is usually sign that the economy is running too hot. I think a lot of folks would say that's a 'nice problem' to have.
When the economy is cooking and we have all these artificial props keeping us up with insane healthcare spending and inflation on the rise, is when I’m more likely to have lower outlook.
Unless I’m mistaken it’s a measure of where you’re trending not where you are in a point in time.
Rising prices of gasoline are the most visible sign of inflation for ordinary US consumers.
“In the nation as a whole, 70.3 percent of lowest-income households face severe housing cost burdens. ” [1] (2016)
[1]https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jchs.harvard.edu/files/ha...
Although, do we expect that group of people to be able to easily afford housing in a good economy? I would guess that this group has a tough time affording housing in any economy.
Depending on how they count households, a few people might also be providing for a large number of house holds, like in a trailer park. With social security/medicare/medicaid/disability, they might be relatively secure in their housing.
Yes. Of course we do. Housing is a basic human need (without which, you are homeless by definition). We should expect all people to easily afford housing in all economies, at all times.
We should expect housing to be as affordable as water or food or electricity is, at all times, in all economic conditions. It should never be "tough" for anyone to afford housing.
this is not true.
https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/2021/Out-of-Reach_...
This is a enormously inaccurate. Speaking from experience, housing affordability is one of the top-5 concerns for most people in the vast majority of Midwestern cities right now (and even some Southern cities). There's crisis-level problems in housing in places like Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Louisville, Most of Urban Michigan (Grand Rapids, Traverse City, Ann Arbor, Detroit), etc, not to mention all the obvious issues in major places like Atlanta or Austin or such.
Housing is affordable in dying small cities with no jobs. Housing is expensive "for most people in most parts of the US". In the Midwest, a huge chunk of the 20-40yr-old aged folks here are literally begging for a entire nation-wide housing crash, so they might not have to rent for the literal entirety of their lives.
I’m saying that maybe employment rates aren’t as relevant of a measure as they once were, because employment at min wage isn’t as useful to the individual as it was 10, 20 years ago.
And it will also show very few people actually make minimum wage and most of them are young teenagers.
I’m not sure we even have to look at the data ourselves to find my statement true, if we accept the following as facts:
1) Wages have largely remained stagnant in the past 10 years
2) Inflation has increased in the past 10 years
3) Housing and healthcare costs have increased in the past 10 years
Thus, even if employment is exactly as it was ten years ago, it doesn’t seem meaningful in understanding economic health.
All of those statements are true, provided you’re talking about real wages, but then those are closer to 1.5 independent facts than 3.0.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...
BLS says real wages at -1.2% over the last year, and thats probably conservative. Combined with my third point it sounds a bit scary dont you think?
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm
I could easily combine points 1 and 2 to your point but imo it makes more sense to separate because inflation and how we measure it is at the heart of the issue.
I cited a 2018 study because the time period in question was largely covered by it. I’m happy to review a 2021 study if you cite one.
Housing costs will also lag as is standard. so we might not see that effect entirely now but we will in the next year or two.
I’m not sure where exactly the goalposts are in this conversation but as you can tell I’m extremely bullish on inflation and the wealth gaps between the poor and wealthy widening. I believe the government is past the point of no return on debt and will need to continue to print money indefinitely to stay caught up. If we were using 70s measures of inflation i suspect we would be hovering around 13%+. Peers who are experts and leaders in finance and economics are of the same opinion - and are currently making a killing off this money printing episode.
I would love to hear more dissenting opinion though and am definitely open to it.
[1]https://www.ncpssm.org/documents/social-security-policy-pape...
I mean it is true. It is virtually impossible to categorize the statement as false. And yet it is wrong in the context of existing society without some additional qualifications.