Hard to believe it when strong economy doesn’t translate to food on the plate.
Tax the rich
Hey, stock market number and GDP go up. So that means we’re all doing better somehow. Right? RIGHT!?!?!!?!!
It’s like when they bail out corporations because they’re about to go tits up and then talk about how they “saved the economy.” No you saved a company that got way too big, was irresponsible, and is holding the country hostage.
Good news all, we paid the ransom!
Hey, they can’t let capitalism work properly. Competition is bad. We need monopolies.
I’ll believe the economics are better when I’m not paying markedly more for everything in my life and my salary increases.
The politicians are so wildly out of touch with the citizens.
This idea that the data is “mistrusted” or “unseen” is ridiculous to the point of incredulity. I don’t care what the data says, I know what my lived experiences are and everything is getting wildly more expensive except my labor, it seems. Show me any study you want, it won’t change that groceries are 30%+ more expensive, my rent keeps going up, restaurants and bars have gotten nearly 50% or more pricier and my wage hasn’t grown to match.
I’ll admit I’m a high income earner. I’ve never had to watch watch what I spend but recently even I’ve noticed increases in everything.
Groceries have doubled from what I paid in 2019. I buy almost the same thing every week and I compared.
Dining out has become much more expensive. Places I used to consider a good value are now expensive.
I ordered a basic meal the other day at a local place. A cheeseburger. Fries. Drink and my friend had a salad. It was almost 59 dollars. Six months ago it was around 30 dollars.
So now I have to watch my spending as everything has increased
Dining out is CRAZY now.
My wife and I were out and about last weekend and needed to eat so we hit a Burger King.
Meals for 2, nothing crazy, was $30… at freaking BURGER KING. We don’t even have a sales tax here.
$21 was the bill for 4 people to eat fast food for lunch in my part of the USA today.
Y’all are paying too much for fast food, it’s not worth that.
Where y’at?
Bumfuck Ohio
Workers wanted an increase in pay, so shareholders needed to offset that by even more. Workers can’t get a raise without shareholders getting a raise.
Inflation is majority driven by profit, not wages. Dems barely attack that angle. Republicans actively work against it.
Yeah except the workers never get the increase in pay you tool. Both Dems and Republicans in office actively help this happening, progressive Dems are the ones that give a damn
Shareholders don’t need to offset shit. They’re just greedy rent seeking bastards.
Shareholders provide economic value (it’s literally in the name) and are not rent-seeking by definition
Pray tell. How?
Shareholders are key investors and are the principal drivers of M&A and infrastructure investment.
Disagreeing with the idea that companies exist to drive shareholder returns does not change the actual purpose of shareholders, nor suddenly cause them to be rent-seekers.
I’m just below the median income for my area. Before the pandemic, I was comfortable. I largely didn’t have to worry about expenses, I could dine out a few times a month, cook meat more than once a week, buy a few hobby luxuries every few months. Could air travel for vacation once a year.
I drive a newish economy sedan, live in a decent area with one roommate, didn’t have all that much but the 401(k) looked good and I had all I wanted.
Now things are tight. Just the other week, went to a bar that sold a damn good burger for $9 with fries. Could have a beer with it and get out under $20. The damn hamburger is $18 now and the beer doubled in price. I try to buy meat twice a month to eat, but my diet is far more bean and lentil based now. Eggs, while doubly more, are still cheap enough to be a frequent protein. My vacations are all at home now. I’ve taken to enjoying fishing, which is admittedly great, but I used to fly to Europe or other parts of the US once a year.
I do not know how folks on minimum wage get by here. Without forming a support network of other minimum wage workers to pool for rent and groceries, it has to be an insane struggle.
If this is the “improving economy”, I don’t want any of it.
I eat out often for work and my company picks up the tab. Part of why I didn’t notice for awhile.
I went to buy eggs and they were like 12 dollars. I could have swore eggs were a lot cheaper in the past.
I eat more hamburgers than I should and that’s where I’ve started to notice the crazy pricing. Like you said you could get a burger and beer for under 20. I use to pay 20 with tip and the tip was over 20%.
I can’t do that anymore.
Me and a partner got fish and chips at a bar yesterday, one app, no drinks, cost us fucking $80. Good fish and chips but like not that good… When I first moved here I was making enough to eat out basically every day and not notice it. I’ve gotten two raises since then but everything is going up in cost so much if I go out twice a week I’m straining my bank account. I’m used to being poor this job was a complete game changer for me but I’m already noticing I’m starting to pick up habits again from when I was making like 1/3 as much as I do now.
What country? Cause those prices seem ridiculously high for the US, unless those are fine dining prices these days
United States Oregon and Illinois.
And no, not fine dining by any means.
From their username, looks like Oregon in the US.
This idea that the data is “mistrusted” or “unseen” is ridiculous to the point of incredulity
Yeah, I see the data every Sunday I go to the grocery store and it sure as fuck isn’t making things better.
This idea that the data is “mistrusted” or “unseen” is ridiculous to the point of incredulity. I don’t care what the data says
That’s…proving them correct, the data IS mistrusted
People know when their lives are getting better or worse. You can explain to them all you want about per-capita GDP, adjusted vs raw unemployment, whatever other jargon-crusted, hyperabstract measurement you care to explain, but people know the world they’re living in. They know whether they’re struggling to get ahead, struggling to stay even or struggling to slow the rate at which they fall behind.
People know when their lives are getting better or worse.
They literally don’t, you ever see these millionaire people making 300k+ a year calling themselves middle class? People love to claim hardship even when they’re doing fine.
No, I have never once seen that. Go ahead and quotemine the one asshole in human history who did say that. Just because someone somewhere doesn’t have an accurate assessment of their situation does not mean that everyone everywhere lacks it.
I see it all the time. They’re all over reddit, twitter, etc
Hello observation bias my old friend. I’ve come to see you again. Because an internet argument softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And that alternative fact that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of observation bias
In restless dreams, I trolled alone Narrow threads of social media 'Neath the halo of a X I turned my collar to the facts When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a mobile alert That split the night And touched the sound of logical fallacies
And in the naked android app I saw Ten thousand tweets maybe more People texting without speaking People scrolling without readinf People writing posts that never shared No one dared Disturb the sound of observation bias
“Fools”, said I, “You do not know Facts like a cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you” But my posts like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the threads of social media
And the people bowed and prayed To the Facebook god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said, “The words of the influencers are written on the subway walls In tenement halls” And whispered in the sounds of observation bias.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s
Unemployment numbers don’t mean a damn thing when wages aren’t enough to live on. The profit has spoken and it says that the working class can starve outside for all it cares.
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That is because Americans are not seeing the benefits. CEOs and stock holders are.
Removed by mod
Nothing indicates a stronger economy than roaring inflation, high as fuck interest rates, tons of corporate bankruptcies, and bank failures.
What a fucking joke. This timeline sucks.
“The Economy” is the state of the ruling class’s bank account. It has nothing to do with whether the working class can afford housing or food. /S
Except not /s
The US has better inflation figures than most other developed countries, wtf are you talking about?
Yes, mild inflation (2-10%) is a sign of a strong economy. Personally, I think the Fed target of 2% is too low nad it should be at 4% to benefit the working class more. Would you like to know more?
No just send me to the damn bug planet thanks
Yes, mild inflation (2-10%) is a sign of a strong economy.
Prove it, no appeals to consensus or theory
Ok, you’re right. It depends on an individualcs defination of a strong economy. Generally, in a stable nation, a economic depression is accompanied by deflation. I can trot out FRED graphs that agree with me, but graphs are funny like the pirates vs global warming joke.
All that said, generally, in a stable nation, when alot of working folks are losing their jobs inflations slows hard or we hit a lil deflation.
A strong advancing economy means goods/services are easier to come by/afford (more advanced tech/infra), which for a currency with the same supply would mean decreasing prices, i.e. “deflation”.
No. Is this a bad LLM bot?
Try thinking for a minute about the actual fundamentals. Same number of people, same amount of money, same amount of time put in, more goods produced, goods cost less.
People treat economics like a frigging religion, IDK how people end up believing the opposite of something so basic as that. And then to actually get that arrogant over it, saying I sound like a bad LLM bot. That’s just rude.
Sounds good except we are no where near 2-10% inflation, unless you’re dumb enough to believe the manipulated numbers that the feds release. Actual inflation is significantly higher.
Show your work.
not that person, but here you go
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/766
18% price increases since 2020.
That literally proves @Coreidan wrong though. 18% increase in all goods from 2020-now would be less than 5% inflation…
Which is still high with not enough wage increases
No I totally trust the people telling us the economy is strong despite everything I see around me. If the economy doesn’t work for the people then it doesn’t matter what GDP or any of the other big stats are doing.
I generally like Biden, but that’s a crock of shit. Anytime news outlets claim that the “economy is strong”, they’re almost always talking about how it is for the investor and owner classes, not for the working class. This economy is absolute dogshit for the proles, how the hell is anybody supposed to survive under these conditions? I make OK money and I’m barely scraping by, I don’t know how the fuck anybody else is still hanging on. Housing and the price of consumer goods needs to seriously come the fuck back down to Earth, it’s squeezing people dry. I kind of wish people in apartment complexes would just start banding together and burn their rental offices down and just refuse to pay rents anymore, because whoever decides what “market rates” are for renting apartments are some of the greediest motherfuckers on the planet.
Rental prices are sickeningly high right now it’s insane. I was excited to see that lawsuit against that rental price fixing company RealPage but it doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere, frustratingly. If all the rental agencies are using the same automated tool to set their rental prices obviously it’s going to artifically inflate them all.
Right?! That’s a much bigger deal and one that absolutely needs a rush on taking care of but no one wants to change anything that makes a rich person somewhere money. They would rather slowly hang millions of the lower and middle classes than piss of a handful of rich people.
The economy matter less to the individual when wage growth has stagnated and most Americans are living pay check to pay check. The economy is healthy for the millionaire class, not the every day American.
Isn’t that a feature of capitalism though, if people are forced to work 2-3 jobs at 60-70 hr/wk to cover bills, you have way more wealth generation per capita than if they were only working 32 hr/wk. The more you exploit your labor, the more your economy is booming.
I think the economy should never be a standard of measure.
Real Median Wages: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Wage growth hasn’t stagnated for the vast majority of Americans.
How would that chart look if the y-axis started at 0?
Much flatter… 310-390 as opposed to what’s ostensibly a 10-90 scale visually.
I’m not sure thats possible. There probably hasnt ever been a time when the median Wages were $0
The number 0 still exists. The chart does show arbitrary values higher and lower than the line. Choosing a lower limit other than 0 is a dishonest choice. It’s the first lesson I taught kids about when I touched on media literacy. Ask yourself why the author chose the mode they used and any arbitrary choices they made.
That’s not the point–because the y-axis doesn’t start at zero, the changes in wages look more drastic than they actually are.
I’m not sure I follow, the OP is clearly wrong about wages not increasing. Real wages are increasing.
$30 of increase since the 1980s is entirely are up by problems in how we measure CPI. Even the understatement in housing alone would eat up that “increase.”
$30 of real wages increase.
Yes we do have a housing shortage, but OP is wrong about wages not increasing
Systemic problems in how we measure “real” dollars have probably outpaced $30 in that timeframe.
Christ I don’t know how you look at that without being disgusted unless you are literally just seeing a line go up and stopping all thought processes at that.
That is a 40 year period with a net increase of $50 per week.
The inflation from 1980 to now averages about 3% per year or a cumulative 270+% in those 40 years.
The purchasing power of $315 in 1980 is equivalent to roughly $1,300 today (and it’s technically more based on metrics).
So us making $365 today means we are getting the equivalent of a pay reduction to $90 in 1980 or a drop of 72% of our pay
The average American is making ~28% of what an equivalent job would be in 1980!
No we aren’t better off. I don’t know how you couldn’t be sickened by that.
Oh also just to add onto that.
It means to be making an average wage for 1980 you would have to be making ~$35/hr to be making $1,400 a week or $70,000 a year to be middle class so no wonder people say wage happiness starts at $72,000 a year it’s literally where you need to be to have the purchasing power of someone 40 years ago.
Any lower than $35/hr and you have been lowered further down the rung of lower class. So if you are making federal minimum wage you have been fucked for some time. Everyone should look at their own wages and how it matches to $35/hr and realize how we have been screwed over.
This is real median wages. This takes into account inflation.
Things are also getting better for the working poor.
The middle class is the one seeing few benefits.
The stock market isn’t the economy… jic that’s what this article is referring to.
Uses a stupid fucking definition of unemployment, then tosses out a biased ass line disparaging peoples distrust of media.
But the poll found that 51% wrongly believe that unemployment is nearing a 50-year high rather than those who believe it’s actually low (49%).
How is the economy booming when Arizona Iced Tea is $1.29?
It’s still 99 cents at the grocery stores (here in Texas) but at a major convenience store chain, they actually have Arizona cans printed 1.59! Like…WTF!
They have it in the drink station at a local gas station near my work. 33oz cup for $0.83… I’ve had to control myself on the number of visits since that discovery. Oh yeah, not just the green tea with honey. They also have Arnold Palmer and Mucho Mango.
The amount of liquor I used to mix with the mango would’ve made this both a problem and solution for younger me.
At winco in Arizona these are 89 cents somehow, love employee owned grocery
The economy! Awesome! So we going to raise wages. What’s the plan?
Nothing?
Oh, we’re going to do nothing…
You dumbfucks refuse to look at the good work Biden is doing and then claim he isn’t doing any.
Me soo stoopid. This one ‘rule’ is going to completely change the entire state of things…
I’d bet this change barely adjusts for inflation.
This is one of dozens of things Biden is doing, I just picked the first google result.
Maybe you’d know that if you ever googled it yourself
I do admit it’s an utter and predictable failure of the democrats that you should have to seek out news of the good things they do. Democrats should be shoving it in the face of low information voters.
You said it was the plan… but w/e.
Sorry I didn’t explain the entire Biden economic recovery plan on detail and hand it on a silver platter to you. But yes, there is a plan, always has been, Democrats just haven’t been shouting it at the top of their lungs.
I mean I never said they didn’t have a plan, nor did I ask you for one. You just kinda called me a dumbass and said that that was the plan. I follow any news I can on Bidens economic plan and its just not interesting.
What’s the plan?
Nothing?
- your own words
The cost of literally everything is outpacing my income like Usain Bolt racing a sleep deprived tortoise.
“the economy” doesn’t mean shit if it doesn’t translate to the fruits of our own labor.
Usain Bolt would never let his tortoises get sleep deprived.
But other than that yeah the economy’s down the shitter
Does the definition of “economy” actually include people or are we just looking at corporation numbers because I can believe THAT economy is going strong but there’s no way I believe that the entire economy is doing just fine. You don’t need to look further than the grocery store prices to see that.
The stock market isn’t the economy regardless of what they try to convince us of.
When so many people can’t afford to buy food, let alone homes while being fully employed - the economy isn’t working.
That depends on your perspective. If you’re rich and getting richer, the economy is working. If you’re anyone else, the economy isn’t working. Your problem isn’t that the economy isn’t working, your problem is that you’re not rich. Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps like the rich people did when they inherited millions to billions from their parents. It’s not that hard.
While I’ll add a /s to acknowledge the end of the posh tone I took, that really is the situation we’re in.
Yes we need our media to focus on real economic measures that are closer to our lives. Consumer price index. Average gallon of gas. Wage growth. Housing costs.
This BS “unemployment” number is worthless and everyone knows it but they keep reporting it!
