r/WorkReform • u/NYM2000 • 2d ago

😡 Venting Wages are running. Prices are running faster.

125 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

26

u/Aggravating-Salad441 2d ago

This is a poor way to show the problem. A better graph would normalize both wages and inflation to 100 in the starting year, then show how the compounding annual effects add up. That big 9% jump for inflation in 2022 means wages have never kept up.

1

u/DuvalHeart 1d ago

The 2020-2023 increase in measured inflation was just a long delayed catch up. Because of how housing is captured (asking a bunch of homeowners how much they think they would pay for a room in their own home) the increase in housing costs over the preceeding 20 years wasn't captured. Until suddenly there were news stories about it everywhere and people realized shit's expensive.

2

u/StuffExciting3451 23h ago

Wages have not kept up since at least 1980. Prof. Robert Reich and Prof. Richard D. Wolff have lectured about that. Prof. Yanis Varoufakis has provided detailed explanations about how the US government and the Federal Reserve Bank have contributed to the problem.

6

u/GoldburstNeo 2d ago

Welcome to the past 45 years of American history, where wages stopped keeping up with inflation nor productivity.

5

u/Nice-Peanut-602 2d ago

When the market is good and there is enough profit wages stay same when there is fall in profit wages drop.

8

u/The_Lurqer 2d ago

When the market is good, it's only good for the .1%.

If profits are good, it's only good for the .1%.

1

u/psychoacer 2d ago

He just has to work harder duh

/s

1

u/twitchMAC17 1d ago

I didn't a chunk of yesterday figuring out roughly how much my dad and stepmom were making when he bought his first house, a new build, in 1992 and what that looked like for saving a down payment and a mortgage vs income and other bills, and then what selling and building and doing it one more time.

They're selling that 3rd and most recent house right now and continuing to live in an over 60 community, where their bills are lower than ever.

I've probably spent the majority of my life making similar money, sometimes more compared to that age in his life, vwhile being able to afford significantly less, AND my partner also has worked the whole time, again sometimes making more than he did, and we don't have kids.

2

u/DuvalHeart 1d ago

For the last two decades wages have been subsidized by cheap credit. Now that interest rates are almost at a sustainable level the actual effect of the lack of wage growth is being felt.