this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
357 points (93.2% liked)

News

23266 readers
4747 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 133 points 4 months ago (17 children)

Despite negative perceptions on the state of the economy, inflation is now much lower than its June 2022 peak of 9.1 percent.

I can never get past economic articles that miss the fundamental issue with "but inflation rates are lower!" card.

Like, the price never went down, it just started increasing faster for a while, and is now slowing down. But it's still increasing.

Like imagine if you went from 0-60 in 2 seconds in an Uber, so you say "slow down". So the driver takes 2 more seconds to go from 60-100.

The rate of acceleration slowed down, but the past acceleration doesn't just magically disappear.

[–] IHeartBadCode@kbin.run 46 points 4 months ago (1 children)

High inflation: I'm losing money faster.

Low inflation: I'm losing money slower.

That's how it should be read.

Despite negative perceptions on the state of the economy, people are losing money a lot slower than its June 2022 peak of losing a shit ton of money per quarter.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Rather than losing money, it's technically more correct to say that we're earning less.

The real trick is converting to purchasing power of individuals and showing the trend overtime.

Like the average/median purchasing power of an American year by year. Not just purchasing power of a dollar, but of the average salary.

Edit:

Are down votes because I didn't mention savings?

Like 50% have less than $500, over a third have less than $100

This functionally isn't a problem for most so I ignored it considering the focus is on poverty and not how I flation effects the wealthiest.

[–] DancingBear@midwest.social 4 points 4 months ago

I think it’s a perception thing? Maybe people feel like they are earning more money than ever before but things cost more so they feel like they are losing money rather than earning less? I don’t know the answer but yea…. Prices are going up and they are still going up, and even if inflation is under control it feels like prices are going up faster than they were before….

Eating at a fast food restaurant I remember my first job I could get a burger for way less than one hour of work at my lowest wage I worked for I could get a whole combo meal at the fast food place next to one of my first jobs for about one hour of work…. Wages have gone up a bit but it’s not keeping pace so if i look at what my same job would pay per hour now it’s still not going to get me a meal for one hour of work, maybe only the burger.

[–] sunzu@kbin.run 1 points 4 months ago

Hard truth hurts peoples feels... So they react with a downvote.

I think you were being downvoted because while you may be technically correct, that means little to the daily life of your average person.

The last time I saw data on wages (pre COVID, so sometime between 2015 and 2019), when adjusted for inflation, wages for the average worker had actually dropped about 5% since then. Add to that that prices have increased faster than inflation across the board, even before COVID, and people are losing money simply keeping afloat. The price of a taco at Taco Bell is now twice what it cost in the 90s when adjusted for inflation. College tuition is up something like 1,500% since the 70s (thanks, Reagan). Something like 60% of houses are considered unaffordable to the average American today, compared to 30% roughly 20 years ago.

All this means that purchasing power has dropped, but "purchasing power" and "earnings" means absolutely nothing to people. The number in their bank account dropping instead of going up matters. The fact that people can't get a mortgage for a house even though the rent they currently pay is more expensive matters. The fact that people have to take on debt to afford essentials is what matters. To the average person, any of that is a clear sign that they're losing money.

load more comments (15 replies)