Between groceries and restaurants, Americans are spending more of their income on food than they have in 30 years.
That’s according to the latest data from the USDA, which shows that U.S. consumers spent more than 11% of their disposable income on eating — whether at home or at a restaurant — in 2022, the highest percentage since 1991.
“This is really a metric that’s about the share of our disposable personal income which the USDA tracks, and which recently was at essentially a 31-year high,” Jesse Newman, food reporter for the Wall Street Journal, told CBS News.
Experts say painfully high food prices, and ongoing inflation more generally, help explain why many Americans are down on the economy despite low unemployment, rising wages and steady economic growth. Inflation is expected to continue slowing this year, with the National Association for Business Economists on Monday forecasting that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — a basket of common goods and services — will decline to an annual rate of 2.4% this year, compared with 4.1% in 2023 and 8% in 2022.
I really wish the media would stop spouting this tripe about lots of jobs, rising wages, and economic growth. None of those things are actually happening in ways that benefit average people.
My raise this year: .
Inflation this year: ⚪
Thanks, boss. Appreciate it.
This is by design. Inflation is designed to make you work harder to justify a raise that barely keeps your standard of living intact.
More profits for your boss, same standard of living (or lower) for you…
Inflation is wildly out of control now, but even pre-pandemic, the central bank’s 2% target inflation is designed to make you work harder for nothing in return
2% inflation isn’t designed to hurt workers, it’s meant to encourage investment in the economy. It helps workers and people who are net borrowers.
If you are a net borrowers, you pay that back with future dollars. Inflation reduces the value of future dollars. Let’s say you get a 3% raise but inflation is 3%. Your boss is being stupid and you basically didn’t get a raise.
But if your mortgage is $2,000 per month, you now have 3% more money to pay it off. That’s because your mortgage doesn’t increase with inflation. So the inflation helps you pay off your loans.
It’s the same with businesses. Investors could either loan money out or invest directly in businesses. Higher inflation makes them more likely to invest in their businesses, because money sitting in the bank loses value due to inflation. This causes them to hire more people.
2% is a good sweet spot that encourages borrowing and investing in businesses, but isn’t too high. Obviously the problem now is that inflation remains above 2%, and there has been no relief from past increases. It would be much better if minimum wage was increased to help out people at the bottom deal with them.
my mortgage does go up with inflation because the central bank raises rates to fight inflation, and i live in a stupid country where a 25yr amortized mortgage isn’t really a 25yr mortgage… you need to renew it every 5 years at whatever interest rates the banks dream up.
Why would a 25 year fixed rate loan not exist? It hurts borrowers when rates are low and lenders when rates are high.
Although it saves you the trouble and expense of refinancing in five years when rates are low again.
But, inflation has been going down. It’s currently around 3.1%.
I made about $10k more this year than last year, still struggling with food costs.
I got a new job that came with a 25k raise last year and the only reason we can afford to eat 3 good meals a day is we started a garden where a lot of our food comes from and I started making most things from scratch, doughs, jam, oat milk, next is peanut butter.
The cheapest loaf of shitty bread at the closest store is $3. At the next closest store 40 minutes away it’s $2.50. What the fuck happened to $1 store brand bread that was fine enough and not almost rock hard by the time you get it.
Man, I just spent $6.29 for a plain loaf of wheat bread! Where are you getting $3 a loaf bread?!
It’s the acme brand plain white loaf, it’s probably been about 6 months since I went in the bread isle but that bread is horrible by the time you buy it, at least at my store, and really only good for toast.
When we were buying bread we would buy something with family in the name? Which was the next cheapest one at around $4-5 for a plain white loaf.
I like how central banks and economists only truly got spooked once wage inflation was a thing
I can’t speak for everyone else, but my hourly rate increased.
It was still less then inflation, benefits cut and hours reduced, but “Promotion!”
/s
Yep, the CEO of our multi-billion dollar company recently sent an email congratulating everyone on a job well done and record profits this quarter, yet our department laid off everyone they newly hired and cut all our hours. My boss said he’s worked here for 30 years and he’s never seen cost cutting like this. It’s disgusting.
“When a metric becomes a target it ceases to be a useful metric”
As someone working for a small business owner, I sure as fuck wish the economy would boom so my wage could go up as well. We just don’t have any customers with expendable income, and our products are on a “wanted not needed” priority. If I had the capital to start my own, more successful, business, I would.