Americans Continue to Name Inflation as Top Financial Problem - eviltoast
  • Shadywack@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    That’s fine and all, and I wish it were so. We just live in an economic reality that has been steadily increasing the inequality with consequences such as unaffordable housing, healthcare, and education.

    Inflating the debt away is advantageous only if the TCO keeps up. In this case the wealthy get the lion’s share of inflationary increases while many people only see modest cost of living offsets that for two years fell behind inflation. We seldom see years where employers give a cost of living adjustment above the current inflationary rate beyond the current year index, to make up for prior years where they didn’t.

    E.g. I see a job posting from 2007 that advertised 65k/year, in the same company with the same role they currently only compensate that same role at about 73k. $65k from 2007 equates to approximately $97k in today’s money. If things were truly equitable and commensurate, and I realize this is an isolated data sample, but it appears to be a common trend across the country.

    For the numbers, that’s $24k of income that would be really great to have today.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      E.g. I see a job posting from 2007 that advertised 65k/year, in the same company with the same role they currently only compensate that same role at about 73k. $65k from 2007 equates to approximately $97k in today’s money. If things were truly equitable and commensurate, and I realize this is an isolated data sample, but it appears to be a common trend across the country.

      I absolutely agree. And I’m willing to bet that the profit at that same firm has only grown over time. So here we have a classic case in which profit margins have outpaced the real volume growth at this firm, making it less efficient and more expensive to operate as a result.

      For the numbers, that’s $24k of income that would be really great to have today.

      Oh sure. Numbers get even worse when you consider how that $24k of income is buying even less housing, health care, and utilities than it did in 2007, and for all the same reasons.

      As profit margin eclipses real growth, the real economy is subsumed by fictitious assets.