The American economy has given a worrying signal before the legislative elections. Personal incomes fell by 0.3% in September, while inflation rebounded to 3.6%, which means that many people find it more difficult to make ends meet.
According to the article, this deterioration of the economic situation is affecting voters’ perception of Donald Trump’s economic management, at a politically delicate time
America hasn't had a left wing President since LBJ. It's been just Republican and de facto Centrist Republicans ever since, under different banners. Nixon for example was arguably to the left of Biden.
"More than Trump" is leaping over a bar that's still in hell. Biden heavily astroturfed on prison reform, rent, school funding, healthcare, women's rights, Gaza, and the environment.
There are concessions but they're few and functionally not that meaningful. It's nice that some folks got some jobs in semiconductor manufacturing, but scads of Americans are still planning to never retire while dying from preventable illnesses.
A few hours earlier someone posted a news article reporting on the GDP data last quarter. The article also mentioned that consumer spending is up.
I got downvoted for this but I’m going to ask it again: is consumer spending up because people are buying more things or are they buying the same things at a higher price?
> is consumer spending up because people are buying more things or are they buying the same things at a higher price?
>
Is the data(consumer spending) adjusted for inflation. Hard to tell without knowing. If you can share the source, that will be great.
Could be people purchasing things that they fear may get more expensive. I did a complete overhaul of my PC not too long ago because things had only kept getting more expensive and I'm glad I did. My costs would be at least double today.
Even if it is adjusted for "inflation" it's nowhere best what actual people are feeling. The inflation numbers have been bunk for a couple of years now.
It was 60 bucks to fill my truck. It's 100 now and this disgrace to humanity doesn't even know what groceries are. He's stealing everything that isn't nailed down, destroying farms, destroying businesses, ppl have been murdered in the streets by poorly trained agents. This is one of the lowest points in American history.
Look most people's quality of life is going backwards, their purchasing power is reduced, but I think they can take some solace in the fact that the mega wealthy are richer than ever.
>The top 1% saw their share of wealth increase to 32.5% ... from 27.4% in 1999.
>These recent gains come at the expense of the middle class – the 40% between the bottom half and the top 10% – who hold only 28.8% ... And the middle’s share is shrinking, down from 32.9% in 1999
Just got home from Walmart to see this. At 3.6% I am LMAO. Try 13.6%. Like the huge boxes of peanut oil they sell for people deep frying turkeys, they are now 3 gallons and I am sure they were 4 last year, if anyone remembers exactly please tells us. Anyway, $47. $1.97 for a can of Campbell's soup. Canned fish, they shrank the cans, I looked at a can of rainbow trout from Chile that was $2.79 and I don't remember the ounces, but I do remember they used to have 22 grams of protein which I pay attention to. Now the same brand is smaller, 12 grams protein, just over half the actual food and $4.29. A can of Bumble Bee salmon 4 ounces, was $2.82, jumped to $3.68 in one go. That is 30.5%.
A few things are stable, probably because they went up so much in previous years they would go out of business if they raise them any more.
America no longer is able to produce affordable beef. I blame Bill Gates who has bought up nearly 300,000 acres of beef ranches and shut them down, in an effort to end beef production because of its contribution to global warming or whatever the fuck his reasons are, and alternative protein sources are taking advantage of the increased demand for other meats to make them more profitable. Result, even cube steak (floor sweepings really) $9.99 per pound today, and a rib steak $23.99. A hunk of pot roast for a stew the cheapest they had was over $30.
Fish though, holy FUCK! Cod at $26.99, haddock that they used to put into fish sticks with pollack, they were so cheap they made fertilizer and cat food out of it more than for human food. Haddock now at $28 per pound.
Well, economically food is now taking up about twice as much of the monthly household budget as it did in 2019.
Eight years of food inflation that really took off in 2020 to double that cost then to what it is now would require annual inflation in food of at least 9.05% per year - that is just how the CPI works with compounding.
Quality food is no longer affordable for people in the bottom third or so of the household income/net worth.
And in fact the share of national income for wages/labor has dropped to its lowest level since 1929. National income for wages and salaries has not been this bad, 43%, since before the start of the depression. And incomes did collapse further in the 1930's but the national income dropped even more. So the share of income to wages actually rose a little bit. But the point is, if you are living paycheck to paycheck as an estimated 63% (it was 59% at the start of 2026, now 63% because apparently we were skating so close to the edge of poverty that 3.6% inflation pushed 4% of households into the paycheck to paycheck category) then this feels like the great depression to you.
A lot of your examples are also examples of what 100 years of overfishing has led to. The beef proved example is also an example of how the monopsony of meat packers disincentives beef production. I’ll also add that the global population continues to increase and combined with water shortages, a warming climate, and urbanization, the eating habits of the past won’t work for the future. Anyway, inflation sucks and it’s definitely higher than 3.7%.
Thank you. Came to this subthread to note that beef was never affordable except that the US economy is based on externalizing the costs of our lifestyle to someone else.
Think you might have misread the tag on that one, friend: https://www.cvs.com/shop/cvs-ibuprofen-pain-fever-relief-nsaid-200-mg-coated-tablets-50-ct-prodid-1012069
Maybe this particular store was just gouging but I am sure about this. I remember the 25 count bottle was 9.99, which is even stupider because why wouldn't you buy 2 of those
Yup. Every night I go stand on the porch and think about this stuff and how it’s always called out as reactionary or overreaction for years and years but nope not to me. I’ve been broke my whole life. I make the same wage as I did in 2022 and I just don’t even care anymore. I used to think I got depressed because of the seasons here in the PNW or brain chemicals but now I just think that’s why they call it a depression…
more!! Than the entireworldsmilitary (USA included) … for fun. They are doing it to get rid of your job.
That’s why no money goes to labor anymore. Microsoft preparing to fire 60,000 people after already firing like half as much is to simply buy more compute and ai stuff.
Inflation calculation is such a racket. When it comes to food they look at replacement. So if beef shoots up they say “this person would replace it with chicken!” So the number doesn’t flippin move. What’s someone whose already buying chicken or turkey supposed to replace with? Lentils? I mean shit it’s such a crock of shit.
> So if beef shoots up they say “this person would replace it with chicken!”
That's not how substitution works. Substitution is strictly within categories, and categories are pretty specific. So something like lean ground beef might get substituted for 85/15, but they aren't just grabbing completely separate items.
We should measure the cost of beef and stop trying to approximate human behavior to lower the inflation levels. Measure it at point A then again at point B and report the percentage change.
However they decided it was on the onset should remain that way. They calculated at a given time what they believed beef made up an individuals diet. Keep it there. Don’t change it just because it sky rocketed.
Ah yes. I also think we should eliminate everything from inflation calculations that people didn’t eat 100 years ago because that would be unfair to make any changes!! I need to know how much the 1920s diet has changed, not what people eat now!
Let me ask two questions which I think will help clarify:
Did you know the index is weighted such that things that take up more of the typical budget have a bigger effect on the index and vice versa?
What should we do if, say, t shirts get much cheaper over time? Continue weighing them the same as we used to, and pretend we spend as much on shirts as we did in 1990 or whatever?
This is the real issue. Inflation is always bad, but it is less bad if incomes are rising in tandem. If incomes are simultaneously declining WHILE inflation is still persistent we almost need to ADD that to the inflation number.
ie, Total inflation is 3.9% in this case. If inflation were 3.6% and incomes rose .6%, then inflation would have been 3%.
The income decline is in real dollars... It has already been adjusted for inflation.
>In September, inflation-adjusted incomes, after taxes, declined 0.3% from the previous month. Consumers appear to be dipping into savings or relying on credit to fuel much of their consumption.
September was the single hardest month I’ve had in many years, dipping into savings and using a credit card to handle the cost of things thrown at me. October has been brutal, with a new car battery needed after a hurricane hit my area on the 9th. Minimal problems for me from the storm, other than just needing to put some sweat equity in to clean up.
It’s bringing my old passenger Depression, who I’ve worked to keep out of my life and hidden, back out. Really feeling gloomy these days.
I have been penny pinching since mid-Summer and reduced some of my contributions as well, but I have als been cutting expenses for the past two years. Back in 2023 after working in management for 12 years I decided I had enough saved and with a small inheritance I received from my granddad dropped to PT and went back to school, finished my undergrad and am now working on my masters. But I lost that PT job and couldn't really work in my industry (construction project management, think emergency restorations) with my availability so I have literally been living like a college kid.
Conversely I have been working at another semi-local company doing resto work but as a remote scheduler, and even over the last 7 months their business is dropping like crazy and I can tell they are trying to consolidate roles and cut operating expenses. I was scheduling between 25-30 jobs per day and now a good day is 20. Fortunately they let me do other admin tasks from my experiences, but I have also noticed the PM's and Team Leads I am scheduling and calling about their work have slowly dwindled down to 4 crews from 7 and 2 PMs from 4-5. And this is traditionally a "recession proof" business. My wife works in the industry as a middle manager and they are also having massive issues, owner is talking about selling, and has also been laying off/not replacing workers.
Granted I live in a state with a huge insurance crisis so it could also be people not wanting to risk losing their home insurance and self performing, or any other reason tied into that. Still in over 7 years doing this I have never seen the industry like this.
Dude, when you ride with Depression, you ride with hitler. Fuck that fascist!
A lot of us have been there- we sympathize and I know I wish I had answers or felt those in charge did. I hope you can do something you really enjoy soon and you can grab the spark. It’s warm enough here for a morning bike ride in the sun. That’s my therapy and hope you can enjoy yours real soon now.
Trunp and Republicans ran pretty successfully on affordability in 2024. I wish Democrats would have leaned in further into that subject during this midterms, but they're always swinging and missing lately.
[OP] Sufficient_Fuel5269 | 12 hours ago
The American economy has given a worrying signal before the legislative elections. Personal incomes fell by 0.3% in September, while inflation rebounded to 3.6%, which means that many people find it more difficult to make ends meet.
According to the article, this deterioration of the economic situation is affecting voters’ perception of Donald Trump’s economic management, at a politically delicate time
ActualSpiders | 12 hours ago
And this is on top of the increases many Americans are about to see in their healthcare & insurance costs.
zxc123zxc123 | 5 hours ago
NO PROBLEM!
Trump will just say:
"Fake news", "Woke stats", and "Leftist science"
"Joe Biden did it", "Thanks, Obama", and "It would have been worse under Kamala"
Then GOP/MAGA types eat that shit up and vote for GOP in 2026. Then try to get Trump again for 2028!
As for how to survive? Who cares. Owning libs is more important.
firejuggler74 | 11 hours ago
I have to wonder if Krugman is still advocating for a 3% inflation target, doesn't seem like it's that beneficial to me.
TuringGoneWild | 9 hours ago
America hasn't had a left wing President since LBJ. It's been just Republican and de facto Centrist Republicans ever since, under different banners. Nixon for example was arguably to the left of Biden.
VonDukez | 6 hours ago
Biden did more for workers, but a lot of the modern left doesn't focus on that
TuringGoneWild | 31 minutes ago
What did he do for workers?
more_housing_co-ops | 20 minutes ago
> Biden did more for workers
"More than Trump" is leaping over a bar that's still in hell. Biden heavily astroturfed on prison reform, rent, school funding, healthcare, women's rights, Gaza, and the environment.
There are concessions but they're few and functionally not that meaningful. It's nice that some folks got some jobs in semiconductor manufacturing, but scads of Americans are still planning to never retire while dying from preventable illnesses.
HypocrisyWarrior | 10 hours ago
A few hours earlier someone posted a news article reporting on the GDP data last quarter. The article also mentioned that consumer spending is up.
I got downvoted for this but I’m going to ask it again: is consumer spending up because people are buying more things or are they buying the same things at a higher price?
RevolutionaryFig9437 | 10 hours ago
> is consumer spending up because people are buying more things or are they buying the same things at a higher price? > Is the data(consumer spending) adjusted for inflation. Hard to tell without knowing. If you can share the source, that will be great.
HypocrisyWarrior | 10 hours ago
Here is one:
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/10/29/economy-is-running-hot-on-strong-consumer-spending-growth-massive-ai-investment-boom/
RevolutionaryFig9437 | 10 hours ago
Thank you for the source. > Yes, as per the Article, the data is "adjusted for inflation" > It seems people are buying more things, 26Q3 vs 25Q3.
enoerew | 7 hours ago
Consumption can be a coping mechanism.
G00NFlay | an hour ago
Could be people purchasing things that they fear may get more expensive. I did a complete overhaul of my PC not too long ago because things had only kept getting more expensive and I'm glad I did. My costs would be at least double today.
Could also be GTA 6 Sales /s
Spaduf | 5 hours ago
Even if it is adjusted for "inflation" it's nowhere best what actual people are feeling. The inflation numbers have been bunk for a couple of years now.
more_housing_co-ops | 18 minutes ago
Ah look! Another great place to note that explosive rents get counted in GDP even though nothing is actually produced by scalping a home.
hypnoticlife | 4 hours ago
Lookup “K shaped economy”.
carlos_the_dwarf_ | 9 hours ago
Believe it or not, professionals have considered this question and know how to measure after inflation.
SimonaRed | 10 hours ago
Same things at a higher price. Same Europe.
angrysquirrel777 | 6 hours ago
This is wrong. These figures are inflation adjusted
MidwestFescue82 | 9 hours ago
It was 60 bucks to fill my truck. It's 100 now and this disgrace to humanity doesn't even know what groceries are. He's stealing everything that isn't nailed down, destroying farms, destroying businesses, ppl have been murdered in the streets by poorly trained agents. This is one of the lowest points in American history.
RedPanda_Explorer | 5 hours ago
He's never pushed a grocery cart.
He's never had to cook his own dinner.
He's never had to put something back because he wasn't sure he could afford it.
He's never had to pump his own gas.
more_housing_co-ops | 17 minutes ago
> He's never had to put something back because he wasn't sure he could afford it.
What about Greenland? TDS confirmed, checkmate libs!
(/s because Poe's Law)
wonderlawl | 9 hours ago
Look most people's quality of life is going backwards, their purchasing power is reduced, but I think they can take some solace in the fact that the mega wealthy are richer than ever.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2026/01/30/wealth-of-the-1-reaches-decade-high-in-the-us/
>The top 1% saw their share of wealth increase to 32.5% ... from 27.4% in 1999.
>These recent gains come at the expense of the middle class – the 40% between the bottom half and the top 10% – who hold only 28.8% ... And the middle’s share is shrinking, down from 32.9% in 1999
https://www.salon.com/2026/10/25/us-inequality-is-getting-worse-in-ways-you-might-not-expect-partner/
New_Breadfruit8692 | 11 hours ago
Just got home from Walmart to see this. At 3.6% I am LMAO. Try 13.6%. Like the huge boxes of peanut oil they sell for people deep frying turkeys, they are now 3 gallons and I am sure they were 4 last year, if anyone remembers exactly please tells us. Anyway, $47. $1.97 for a can of Campbell's soup. Canned fish, they shrank the cans, I looked at a can of rainbow trout from Chile that was $2.79 and I don't remember the ounces, but I do remember they used to have 22 grams of protein which I pay attention to. Now the same brand is smaller, 12 grams protein, just over half the actual food and $4.29. A can of Bumble Bee salmon 4 ounces, was $2.82, jumped to $3.68 in one go. That is 30.5%.
A few things are stable, probably because they went up so much in previous years they would go out of business if they raise them any more.
America no longer is able to produce affordable beef. I blame Bill Gates who has bought up nearly 300,000 acres of beef ranches and shut them down, in an effort to end beef production because of its contribution to global warming or whatever the fuck his reasons are, and alternative protein sources are taking advantage of the increased demand for other meats to make them more profitable. Result, even cube steak (floor sweepings really) $9.99 per pound today, and a rib steak $23.99. A hunk of pot roast for a stew the cheapest they had was over $30.
Fish though, holy FUCK! Cod at $26.99, haddock that they used to put into fish sticks with pollack, they were so cheap they made fertilizer and cat food out of it more than for human food. Haddock now at $28 per pound.
Well, economically food is now taking up about twice as much of the monthly household budget as it did in 2019.
Eight years of food inflation that really took off in 2020 to double that cost then to what it is now would require annual inflation in food of at least 9.05% per year - that is just how the CPI works with compounding.
Quality food is no longer affordable for people in the bottom third or so of the household income/net worth.
And in fact the share of national income for wages/labor has dropped to its lowest level since 1929. National income for wages and salaries has not been this bad, 43%, since before the start of the depression. And incomes did collapse further in the 1930's but the national income dropped even more. So the share of income to wages actually rose a little bit. But the point is, if you are living paycheck to paycheck as an estimated 63% (it was 59% at the start of 2026, now 63% because apparently we were skating so close to the edge of poverty that 3.6% inflation pushed 4% of households into the paycheck to paycheck category) then this feels like the great depression to you.
HaloFever117 | 10 hours ago
A lot of your examples are also examples of what 100 years of overfishing has led to. The beef proved example is also an example of how the monopsony of meat packers disincentives beef production. I’ll also add that the global population continues to increase and combined with water shortages, a warming climate, and urbanization, the eating habits of the past won’t work for the future. Anyway, inflation sucks and it’s definitely higher than 3.7%.
more_housing_co-ops | 14 minutes ago
Thank you. Came to this subthread to note that beef was never affordable except that the US economy is based on externalizing the costs of our lifestyle to someone else.
TeenyTinyHat | an hour ago
300,000 acres wouldn't even make a dent in the estimated 614,000,000 acres of cattle ranch land.
USDA attributes it to prolonged drought and big changes to agribusiness.
glassArmShattering | 11 hours ago
I went into a cvs the other day, and I am not shitting you they wanted $22 for a 50 count generic ibuprofen bottle.
carlos_the_dwarf_ | 9 hours ago
Think you might have misread the tag on that one, friend: https://www.cvs.com/shop/cvs-ibuprofen-pain-fever-relief-nsaid-200-mg-coated-tablets-50-ct-prodid-1012069
The 500 count, on the other hand, costs $22.
glassArmShattering | 9 hours ago
Maybe this particular store was just gouging but I am sure about this. I remember the 25 count bottle was 9.99, which is even stupider because why wouldn't you buy 2 of those
carlos_the_dwarf_ | 9 hours ago
It seems more likely the shelves were just mixed up.
DwarfFart | 4 hours ago
Yup. Every night I go stand on the porch and think about this stuff and how it’s always called out as reactionary or overreaction for years and years but nope not to me. I’ve been broke my whole life. I make the same wage as I did in 2022 and I just don’t even care anymore. I used to think I got depressed because of the seasons here in the PNW or brain chemicals but now I just think that’s why they call it a depression…
sailing_oceans | 3 hours ago
Google, spacex, meta, Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI, invidia, oracle, and anthropic aren’t spending
more!! Than the entire worlds military (USA included) … for fun. They are doing it to get rid of your job.
That’s why no money goes to labor anymore. Microsoft preparing to fire 60,000 people after already firing like half as much is to simply buy more compute and ai stuff.
Consistent_Laziness | 10 hours ago
Inflation calculation is such a racket. When it comes to food they look at replacement. So if beef shoots up they say “this person would replace it with chicken!” So the number doesn’t flippin move. What’s someone whose already buying chicken or turkey supposed to replace with? Lentils? I mean shit it’s such a crock of shit.
reasonably_plausible | 9 hours ago
> So if beef shoots up they say “this person would replace it with chicken!”
That's not how substitution works. Substitution is strictly within categories, and categories are pretty specific. So something like lean ground beef might get substituted for 85/15, but they aren't just grabbing completely separate items.
Crew_1996 | 9 hours ago
That’s chained CPI. Not the CPI that’s reported. I have no opinion on what inflation really is. You’re just describing something different
carlos_the_dwarf_ | 9 hours ago
I’m not sure you’ve thought this one through. Should we pick a fixed amount of beef and assume families eat that much forever?
Consistent_Laziness | 9 hours ago
We should measure the cost of beef and stop trying to approximate human behavior to lower the inflation levels. Measure it at point A then again at point B and report the percentage change.
carlos_the_dwarf_ | 9 hours ago
They certainly do that, but it’s not actually what I asked.
How do you determine how much of the index beef should represent?
Consistent_Laziness | 9 hours ago
However they decided it was on the onset should remain that way. They calculated at a given time what they believed beef made up an individuals diet. Keep it there. Don’t change it just because it sky rocketed.
sarges_12gauge | 8 hours ago
Ah yes. I also think we should eliminate everything from inflation calculations that people didn’t eat 100 years ago because that would be unfair to make any changes!! I need to know how much the 1920s diet has changed, not what people eat now!
carlos_the_dwarf_ | 9 hours ago
Let me ask two questions which I think will help clarify:
Did you know the index is weighted such that things that take up more of the typical budget have a bigger effect on the index and vice versa?
What should we do if, say, t shirts get much cheaper over time? Continue weighing them the same as we used to, and pretend we spend as much on shirts as we did in 1990 or whatever?
gdirrty216 | 11 hours ago
This is the real issue. Inflation is always bad, but it is less bad if incomes are rising in tandem. If incomes are simultaneously declining WHILE inflation is still persistent we almost need to ADD that to the inflation number.
ie, Total inflation is 3.9% in this case. If inflation were 3.6% and incomes rose .6%, then inflation would have been 3%.
GhostofBeowulf | 11 hours ago
The income decline is in real dollars... It has already been adjusted for inflation.
>In September, inflation-adjusted incomes, after taxes, declined 0.3% from the previous month. Consumers appear to be dipping into savings or relying on credit to fuel much of their consumption.
082426grateful | 10 hours ago
September was the single hardest month I’ve had in many years, dipping into savings and using a credit card to handle the cost of things thrown at me. October has been brutal, with a new car battery needed after a hurricane hit my area on the 9th. Minimal problems for me from the storm, other than just needing to put some sweat equity in to clean up.
It’s bringing my old passenger Depression, who I’ve worked to keep out of my life and hidden, back out. Really feeling gloomy these days.
GhostofBeowulf | 7 hours ago
I have been penny pinching since mid-Summer and reduced some of my contributions as well, but I have als been cutting expenses for the past two years. Back in 2023 after working in management for 12 years I decided I had enough saved and with a small inheritance I received from my granddad dropped to PT and went back to school, finished my undergrad and am now working on my masters. But I lost that PT job and couldn't really work in my industry (construction project management, think emergency restorations) with my availability so I have literally been living like a college kid.
Conversely I have been working at another semi-local company doing resto work but as a remote scheduler, and even over the last 7 months their business is dropping like crazy and I can tell they are trying to consolidate roles and cut operating expenses. I was scheduling between 25-30 jobs per day and now a good day is 20. Fortunately they let me do other admin tasks from my experiences, but I have also noticed the PM's and Team Leads I am scheduling and calling about their work have slowly dwindled down to 4 crews from 7 and 2 PMs from 4-5. And this is traditionally a "recession proof" business. My wife works in the industry as a middle manager and they are also having massive issues, owner is talking about selling, and has also been laying off/not replacing workers.
Granted I live in a state with a huge insurance crisis so it could also be people not wanting to risk losing their home insurance and self performing, or any other reason tied into that. Still in over 7 years doing this I have never seen the industry like this.
guisar | 5 hours ago
Dude, when you ride with Depression, you ride with hitler. Fuck that fascist!
A lot of us have been there- we sympathize and I know I wish I had answers or felt those in charge did. I hope you can do something you really enjoy soon and you can grab the spark. It’s warm enough here for a morning bike ride in the sun. That’s my therapy and hope you can enjoy yours real soon now.
am1shvom1t | an hour ago
Trunp and Republicans ran pretty successfully on affordability in 2024. I wish Democrats would have leaned in further into that subject during this midterms, but they're always swinging and missing lately.