And if we're strictly speaking about the poorest - they also don't have a 401k or retirement savings, so they aren't benefiting from the increase in asset prices.
And if we're strictly speaking about the poorest - they also don't have a 401k or retirement savings, so they aren't benefiting from the increase in asset prices.
“Real” meaning “adjusted for inflation”.
https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2023/01/inflat...
: As there are no official estimates of inflation by demographic and income groups
: In the first post of this series, we present disparities in inflation rates across racial and ethnic groups as well as across income groups between June 2019 and December 2022. We present evidence that during this period, Black, Hispanic, and middle-income households were most affected by rising inflation, experiencing steadily higher price increases relative to the overall average between early 2021 and June 2022. This pattern is largely because a greater share of these groups’ expenditures is devoted to transportation, particularly used cars and motor fuel, categories that led the 2021 inflationary episode. However, over the last five months, as transportation inflation has declined, these gaps have declined as well.
: It is likely the case that the same rate of inflation represents a greater welfare loss for lower-income than higher-income households because of the former’s lower capacity for substituting to less expensive goods, greater liquidity constraints, and larger marginal utility of real income.
That's what inflation adjustment is for.
> The poorest people in the US saw faster inflation-adjusted wage growth than any other income bracket: https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2022/
It doesn't. "Real wages" are adjusted to changes in CPI. It makes no assertions that everything inflates at the same pace, any more than the overall CPI figure does the same.
If your wages went up 20%, and the CPI went up by 10% (composed of, say, a 40% rise in rent and some commensurate declines in other goods and services), your real wages went up by 10%. Of course, how that impacts actual individuals is different based on their circumstances.
Pray tell, what has declined in price the past 5 years?
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/economy-inflation-deflation...
So is this an actual reduction in price, or yet again just covid supply squeezes easing off? Does a 2.6% drop in price actually offset the price increases of the past 5 years?
Well yes - rent is driven up by more people being around, and groceries by wages and fuel going up. As for fast food jobs - if a fast food job can get you a place to live by yourself that's amazing, but surely that's going to be harder and harder to find as demand stays high and the number of 2-income families, who can just out-bid you easily, also is high.