Comment on "I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel" — US cost of living has skyrocketed since 2020

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Ranvier@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

That’s why we have “real wages” statistic so you can do that comparison. Where you adjust wages for inflation in comparison to a set point in time so they are comparable.

weforum.org/…/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart/

This chart only goes to 2019. Real wages did dip some during the corona virus pandemic as for a time inflation was out pacing wage increases. This has since reversed though, with wage growth outpacing inflation, and real wages are now higher than they were in 2019. Anchored to 1992-1984 dollars, in 2019 real wages were $10.96 /hr, in October 2023 they were $11.05.

So yes, as of right now inflation that occured during the pandemic has been fully accounted for and then some by the total wage growth that occured during and since. Wage growth continues to out pace inflation, so hopefully things will continue to get better. That’s not to say there hasn’t been a persistent problem over decades of wages getting diluted. Real wages dropped significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, remained flat in the 90s and 00s, and only really began to recover after the financial crisis in 2008.

2023 real wages report www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/realer.pdf

2019 real wages report stats.bls.gov/news.release/…/realer_01142020.pdf

Wage growth vs inflation: www.statista.com/…/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/

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