The disconnect is the Casino that is the Stock Market- inflating company values to imply a booming economy- while ground level cost of living is untenable, by almost everybody's standards.
There are people who are technically rich, millionaires or making hundreds of thousands per year, who are damn well aware that their groceries shouldn't be magically 75% more expensive than they were just a year ago.
My wife and I went abroad this summer and yes, traveling can be expensive, but we were hyper aware that meal prices, grocery prices, uber prices- everything was kind of at a reasonable level in other countries compared to back home. We remarked how every $1 we spent abroad would have effectively been between $1.25 to $1.75 at home. Extrapolate that across formerly $4 packages of food now costing $7, what were $6 eggs now costing $11, etc. and you can see how this is untenable.
Meanwhile- every single person I know who does hourly work are all basically out of work. This time last year these were all people who boasted about working 60 to 80 hours a week and a slow week was 30 hours and they had to force themselves to take a few days off to let their bodies rest and to get personal stuff done. Now those same people, for most of this year, have struggled to stitch together 40 hours a week overall and the last few months a lot of them tell me they maybe scratch and claw about 60 hours for the entire month and that's if they have one particularly 'heavy' week of like 20 hours of work.
Even the people I know who have salaried jobs are telling me they just don't have as much work to do as usual, that projects are moving slowly because nobody is doing anything.
Went to Japan this spring and granted their situation isn't great, and that's a huge factor, but wow it was wild to get lunch for like... four dollars? I barely eat out in the States anymore because I'll blow a solid chunk of my grocery budget just for fast food alone. And most of my expendable budget right now that isn't going into savings for safety is going toward things like food. This wasn't true like five years ago.
I mean some of this literally has to do with wealth inequality. When the rich get too rich verse everyone else they have no where else to put their money and it over inflates assets.
> There are people who are technically rich, millionaires or making hundreds of thousands per year, who are damn well aware that their groceries shouldn't be magically 75% more expensive than they were just a year ago.
>
>
What groceries are 75% more expensive?
>Even the people I know who have salaried jobs are telling me they just don't have as much work to do as usual, that projects are moving slowly because nobody is doing anything.
Yea business likes stability. Like a clam theyll retract in danger or uncertainty. Wars, oil prices, tariffs, executive orders etc. all go against that.
People like to credit themselves for their wage increases and the government for grocery prices and gas. Under biden they had the wage increases but also price increases so they were dissatisfied as they thought they should be getting more ahead then they were.
So they threw out stability hoping they would come out on time.
I have price shopped across multiple grocery stores/multiple grocery chains and basically everything is more expensive.
Stuff that used to be $4.49 is now $7.79, stuff that used to be $8.99 is now $11.99, stuff that used to be $4.99 is now $7.99 etc. You name it, the item has gone up in cost.
Chicken, Ham, Eggs, Milk, Creamer, Coffee (holy shit! I used to buy my coffee to make at home for like $6 and now it's $13) etc. Even my cat's wet food went from $4 for 2 cans to $5 for 2 cans after sitting at $4 for 2 cans for YEARS. His litter went from $8.99 to $12.99.
Every single thing has gone up by about 40% to 80%.
This highlights the growing disconnect between top-line macroeconomic indicators and ground-level consumer sentiment Even when headline inflation cools down, price levels remain cumulatively elevated compared to pre-pandemic baselines. High housing costs, interest rates, and essential goods continue to outpace real wage growth for the median household, directly squeezing discretionary income
I feel like at this point it's almost entirely housing that can be blamed. for 35+ years the real estate increased in value by 6%+ per year.
Had it stuck around the inflation target of 2% people would not be feeling it as hard. It's easy to say Milk has increased when you ignore that now a basic ass apartment goes for 1600/month in a low cost of living area.
Even gas and oil is probably where it should be when you adjust for inflation.. Which we're always going to have because that's the system that has been built.
We keep ignoring housing and health care as thing's we can't control and instead focus on GROCERIES or gas prices which probably are in line adjusted for inflation over that same time period.
Now the issue is that we want to protect homes as a 6% ROI investment and even people who bought a home 5 years ago are in that boat of not wanting their house value to go down..
It's only going to get WAY fucking worse from here. That 6% is compounding.
The only way to really solve this cost of living crisis is to build a fuck ton of housing and basically stall house prices perpetually until wages catch up and beyond.
Housing is basically flat since 2022 in most areas. Some metros are increasing but most are flat or down. During that time wages have gone up about 15% and mortgage rates have dropped.
"basically flat" is meaningless when it comes to assets. It's also not correct. Plenty of markets have been trudging right along. You can go back into the 80s and 90s and see plenty of "flat" years for real estate and even the stock market. Some localized markets go faster than others and etc.. Then you get huge run ups and it averages out to 6% compounding growth even through the "basically flat" years. Yeah Austin is "basically flat" since 2022 but it "basically doubled" over the span of a few years before that... That happens over and over in smaller doses over the year. Going decades back.
This is basic investment 101. We're talking 6% average compounding growth since at least the 80s. It takes a while to get to big numbers from low numbers.
It doesn't automatically stop because of the last handful of years has been flat assuming that's even true. Problem is we're at the "big numbers" now for real estate and that 6% adds up to a lot of money year over year.
The inflation and economy we have now means houses will continue to be a commodity.
AKA.. 6% compounding average is going to continue if not increase. There is literally nothing at the moment that will stop that and you need to look over the span of decades to see how it works.
Housing affordability is what your mortgage is as a percent of your income. Which is why it being flat matters as income rises. Median sale price has actually gone down about 10% since 2022.
As well as falling mortgage rates. It obviously will grow faster with lower interest rates and part of why it grew fast infusion of cash ppp and other wise during covid and 0% fed rates.
The annualized growth from the 80s is 4.22, not 6% vs 3.1 for regular inflation. Other than covid times it was generally tracking with.
>AKA.. 6% compounding average is going to continue if not increase. There is literally nothing at the moment that will stop that and you need to look over the span of decades to see how it works.
I mean interest rates. Cutting regulations to increase housing builds. Population in specific areas. Hence like austin did overbuild because more growth was expected and it wasnt way down. not flat.Austin home prices have dropped about 24.5% from their May 2022 peak. So 25% off + 15% higher income, 40% more affordable than 2022. As I said before there have only been 2 bursts where it was well above inflation. 1980s and covid times.
You made up fake numbers for growth. Your argument is nonsense in the real world. For an asset to go down 10% and wages to go up 15% that means its 25% more affordable.
> Maybe 6% was a little too local, but good thing for that 08 housing bust or prices would be quite a bit higher right now.
>
>
Possibly but look what happened to housing starts. You basically destroyed 20 million homes in that recession that would have been built otherwise.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST
>Cost of living is this.. A starter home that cost 110k in 2000 is now 360k lol. Good luck with that down payment.
Ok the down payment then for 3.5% FHA was 4K. Or roughly 8 weeks of nominal earnings
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881500Q
Now its 360K (though that looks close to median not sure what you mean by starter home since you have several different types of homes that would be cheaper). so 12.6K needed. About 10 weeks of nominal earnings.
So about 2 weeks difference in total savings vs wages. Yes I know we dont save 100% of our paycheck but if youre savings 15% for your down payment the first one takes a year and the second 66 weeks. So doesnt seem that large in the scheme of things.
Btw Median home then was 165K and is now 410K. So about 2.5x times. Not the 3.6x youre saying a starter home changed. Maybe area dependent
>Also it's you that's wrong about "basically flat".. see the link.
Its a different metric I'll agree. Its basically only single family homes (so no starter townhouses etc) and how much they go up between sales. And with 2008 it took 8 years to break even on buying a home so roughly a 0% return for 8 years. And you see the acceleration and subsequent curve and flattening off since.
Jobs report today so it's funny when you read one morning email that hypes the expected 80K figure at 4.2% UE and then read another email where a CEO talks about 2,400 people competing for every 10 jobs
It's really more of why costs are rising. And the President saying it's not even happening. Which can only mean things will get even worse. Life is much easier if a tangible amount of planning for the future can occur.
Well the billionaires are raising their standard of living. The whole intent here is to move as much money as possible to the top 1%. The sad part is, many people support this because they feel like embarrassed millionaires themself when they make poverty wages.
I make more money today than I ever have, yet always feel squeezed on all sides. Insurance has gone up, healthcare, groceries, gas, utilities, housing, costs of vehicles, everything. Feels pretty hopeless sometimes.
This is why I’m voting blue straight down the ticket. I literally don’t care who it is. It could be Bibi in a Groucho mask with an AIPAC pin, or mecha-Joseph-Stalin seizing the means of meme production— I literally don’t care, if they will stand up to Trump and actually focus on someone other than themselves, they have my vote.
Broad-Lobster7470 | 18 hours ago
What an insightful study. Things being expensive are preventing people from affording a more comfortable life. That’s exactly how that works isn’t it
Lady_Rubberbones | 17 hours ago
Economists are so smart sometimes.
xFblthpx | 9 hours ago
Smells like a teacher that has to publish something every few years to get tenure.
HumorAccomplished611 | 14 hours ago
IF ONLY GOOD THING CHEAP I BUY MORE GOOD THING
Professional_Mix8632 | 10 hours ago
🤣🤣🤣🤣 so insightful! If only there was something to do? I know! Let’s have the billionaires fix it
Appropriate_Formal64 | 18 hours ago
The disconnect is the Casino that is the Stock Market- inflating company values to imply a booming economy- while ground level cost of living is untenable, by almost everybody's standards.
There are people who are technically rich, millionaires or making hundreds of thousands per year, who are damn well aware that their groceries shouldn't be magically 75% more expensive than they were just a year ago.
My wife and I went abroad this summer and yes, traveling can be expensive, but we were hyper aware that meal prices, grocery prices, uber prices- everything was kind of at a reasonable level in other countries compared to back home. We remarked how every $1 we spent abroad would have effectively been between $1.25 to $1.75 at home. Extrapolate that across formerly $4 packages of food now costing $7, what were $6 eggs now costing $11, etc. and you can see how this is untenable.
Meanwhile- every single person I know who does hourly work are all basically out of work. This time last year these were all people who boasted about working 60 to 80 hours a week and a slow week was 30 hours and they had to force themselves to take a few days off to let their bodies rest and to get personal stuff done. Now those same people, for most of this year, have struggled to stitch together 40 hours a week overall and the last few months a lot of them tell me they maybe scratch and claw about 60 hours for the entire month and that's if they have one particularly 'heavy' week of like 20 hours of work.
Even the people I know who have salaried jobs are telling me they just don't have as much work to do as usual, that projects are moving slowly because nobody is doing anything.
hill-o | 15 hours ago
Went to Japan this spring and granted their situation isn't great, and that's a huge factor, but wow it was wild to get lunch for like... four dollars? I barely eat out in the States anymore because I'll blow a solid chunk of my grocery budget just for fast food alone. And most of my expendable budget right now that isn't going into savings for safety is going toward things like food. This wasn't true like five years ago.
HumorAccomplished611 | 14 hours ago
Yea thats also cause their currency devalued over 60% to the dollar. And local wages havent kept up with that
hill-o | 13 hours ago
Right for sure, that’s what I was getting at but could have been more specific about.
HumorAccomplished611 | 11 hours ago
Still a sweet time to visit. Been begging my wife for us to do a disney trip there lol. Shes scared of flying
dogthatwonthunt | 11 hours ago
I mean some of this literally has to do with wealth inequality. When the rich get too rich verse everyone else they have no where else to put their money and it over inflates assets.
HumorAccomplished611 | 14 hours ago
> There are people who are technically rich, millionaires or making hundreds of thousands per year, who are damn well aware that their groceries shouldn't be magically 75% more expensive than they were just a year ago. > >
What groceries are 75% more expensive?
>Even the people I know who have salaried jobs are telling me they just don't have as much work to do as usual, that projects are moving slowly because nobody is doing anything.
Yea business likes stability. Like a clam theyll retract in danger or uncertainty. Wars, oil prices, tariffs, executive orders etc. all go against that.
People like to credit themselves for their wage increases and the government for grocery prices and gas. Under biden they had the wage increases but also price increases so they were dissatisfied as they thought they should be getting more ahead then they were.
So they threw out stability hoping they would come out on time.
Appropriate_Formal64 | 14 hours ago
I have price shopped across multiple grocery stores/multiple grocery chains and basically everything is more expensive.
Stuff that used to be $4.49 is now $7.79, stuff that used to be $8.99 is now $11.99, stuff that used to be $4.99 is now $7.99 etc. You name it, the item has gone up in cost.
Chicken, Ham, Eggs, Milk, Creamer, Coffee (holy shit! I used to buy my coffee to make at home for like $6 and now it's $13) etc. Even my cat's wet food went from $4 for 2 cans to $5 for 2 cans after sitting at $4 for 2 cans for YEARS. His litter went from $8.99 to $12.99.
Every single thing has gone up by about 40% to 80%.
HumorAccomplished611 | 14 hours ago
Things are up about 40% from 2019 but not from last year.
Coffee is basically the only thing up 30% in the past year.
MEat poultry eggs
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SAF112
fruits and vegetables
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SAF113
coffee this one actually went up a lot
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SEFP01
findingmike | 11 hours ago
Did we lose last October's data?
HumorAccomplished611 | 11 hours ago
Yes government was shut down for 2 months. First time in history that cpi didnt have a months data
findingmike | 11 hours ago
I had assumed that the data could be recovered - TIL
HumorAccomplished611 | 11 hours ago
They get weekly or biweekly data on about 300,000 items. If no one is there for 6 weeks than thats what happens.
We actually lost the housing survey data for 2 months understating inflation for about 6 months.
findingmike | 11 hours ago
I assumed that we would still receive the data and catch up on computing it. Thanks for the info.
VacanyeraYT | 19 hours ago
This highlights the growing disconnect between top-line macroeconomic indicators and ground-level consumer sentiment Even when headline inflation cools down, price levels remain cumulatively elevated compared to pre-pandemic baselines. High housing costs, interest rates, and essential goods continue to outpace real wage growth for the median household, directly squeezing discretionary income
bdiddy_ | 16 hours ago
I feel like at this point it's almost entirely housing that can be blamed. for 35+ years the real estate increased in value by 6%+ per year.
Had it stuck around the inflation target of 2% people would not be feeling it as hard. It's easy to say Milk has increased when you ignore that now a basic ass apartment goes for 1600/month in a low cost of living area.
Even gas and oil is probably where it should be when you adjust for inflation.. Which we're always going to have because that's the system that has been built.
We keep ignoring housing and health care as thing's we can't control and instead focus on GROCERIES or gas prices which probably are in line adjusted for inflation over that same time period.
Now the issue is that we want to protect homes as a 6% ROI investment and even people who bought a home 5 years ago are in that boat of not wanting their house value to go down..
It's only going to get WAY fucking worse from here. That 6% is compounding.
The only way to really solve this cost of living crisis is to build a fuck ton of housing and basically stall house prices perpetually until wages catch up and beyond.
HumorAccomplished611 | 14 hours ago
Housing is basically flat since 2022 in most areas. Some metros are increasing but most are flat or down. During that time wages have gone up about 15% and mortgage rates have dropped.
bdiddy_ | 11 hours ago
"basically flat" is meaningless when it comes to assets. It's also not correct. Plenty of markets have been trudging right along. You can go back into the 80s and 90s and see plenty of "flat" years for real estate and even the stock market. Some localized markets go faster than others and etc.. Then you get huge run ups and it averages out to 6% compounding growth even through the "basically flat" years. Yeah Austin is "basically flat" since 2022 but it "basically doubled" over the span of a few years before that... That happens over and over in smaller doses over the year. Going decades back.
This is basic investment 101. We're talking 6% average compounding growth since at least the 80s. It takes a while to get to big numbers from low numbers.
It doesn't automatically stop because of the last handful of years has been flat assuming that's even true. Problem is we're at the "big numbers" now for real estate and that 6% adds up to a lot of money year over year.
The inflation and economy we have now means houses will continue to be a commodity.
AKA.. 6% compounding average is going to continue if not increase. There is literally nothing at the moment that will stop that and you need to look over the span of decades to see how it works.
HumorAccomplished611 | 7 hours ago
Housing affordability is what your mortgage is as a percent of your income. Which is why it being flat matters as income rises. Median sale price has actually gone down about 10% since 2022.
As well as falling mortgage rates. It obviously will grow faster with lower interest rates and part of why it grew fast infusion of cash ppp and other wise during covid and 0% fed rates.
The annualized growth from the 80s is 4.22, not 6% vs 3.1 for regular inflation. Other than covid times it was generally tracking with.
>AKA.. 6% compounding average is going to continue if not increase. There is literally nothing at the moment that will stop that and you need to look over the span of decades to see how it works.
I mean interest rates. Cutting regulations to increase housing builds. Population in specific areas. Hence like austin did overbuild because more growth was expected and it wasnt way down. not flat.Austin home prices have dropped about 24.5% from their May 2022 peak. So 25% off + 15% higher income, 40% more affordable than 2022. As I said before there have only been 2 bursts where it was well above inflation. 1980s and covid times.
bdiddy_ | 5 hours ago
You're arguing to argue and not reading anything I'm saying. Pointless to talk to you.
10% reduction after a huge run up is meaningless to this conversation.
HumorAccomplished611 | 5 hours ago
You made up fake numbers for growth. Your argument is nonsense in the real world. For an asset to go down 10% and wages to go up 15% that means its 25% more affordable.
Basically, youre too stupid to figure it out.
bdiddy_ | 5 hours ago
No I think you don't understand the context. Like you literally don't understand the words I wrote down.
https://www.macrotrends.net/3072/us-house-price-index
Maybe 6% was a little too local, but good thing for that 08 housing bust or prices would be quite a bit higher right now.
Cost of living is this.. A starter home that cost 110k in 2000 is now 360k lol. Good luck with that down payment.
Wages have not kept up. At least not in cities where you actually can get a job.
Nuance matters.. It's not the eggs, gas and milk
Also it's you that's wrong about "basically flat".. see the link.
HumorAccomplished611 | 4 hours ago
> Maybe 6% was a little too local, but good thing for that 08 housing bust or prices would be quite a bit higher right now. > >
Possibly but look what happened to housing starts. You basically destroyed 20 million homes in that recession that would have been built otherwise.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST
>Cost of living is this.. A starter home that cost 110k in 2000 is now 360k lol. Good luck with that down payment.
Ok the down payment then for 3.5% FHA was 4K. Or roughly 8 weeks of nominal earnings
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881500Q
Now its 360K (though that looks close to median not sure what you mean by starter home since you have several different types of homes that would be cheaper). so 12.6K needed. About 10 weeks of nominal earnings.
So about 2 weeks difference in total savings vs wages. Yes I know we dont save 100% of our paycheck but if youre savings 15% for your down payment the first one takes a year and the second 66 weeks. So doesnt seem that large in the scheme of things.
Btw Median home then was 165K and is now 410K. So about 2.5x times. Not the 3.6x youre saying a starter home changed. Maybe area dependent
>Also it's you that's wrong about "basically flat".. see the link.
Its a different metric I'll agree. Its basically only single family homes (so no starter townhouses etc) and how much they go up between sales. And with 2008 it took 8 years to break even on buying a home so roughly a 0% return for 8 years. And you see the acceleration and subsequent curve and flattening off since.
ap1618 | 16 hours ago
Jobs report today so it's funny when you read one morning email that hypes the expected 80K figure at 4.2% UE and then read another email where a CEO talks about 2,400 people competing for every 10 jobs
Toadfinger | 19 hours ago
It's really more of why costs are rising. And the President saying it's not even happening. Which can only mean things will get even worse. Life is much easier if a tangible amount of planning for the future can occur.
hill-o | 15 hours ago
Let's be accurate here. He's not always saying it isn't happening, sometimes he simply says he just doesn't care that it is.
iveseensomethings82 | 14 hours ago
Well the billionaires are raising their standard of living. The whole intent here is to move as much money as possible to the top 1%. The sad part is, many people support this because they feel like embarrassed millionaires themself when they make poverty wages.
roblvb15 | 13 hours ago
At this rate being a millionaire won’t even be enough
RandomStrangerOnWWW | 14 hours ago
I make more money today than I ever have, yet always feel squeezed on all sides. Insurance has gone up, healthcare, groceries, gas, utilities, housing, costs of vehicles, everything. Feels pretty hopeless sometimes.
Rattus_NorvegicUwUs | 14 hours ago
The rent is too damn high.
The food costs are too damn high.
The wages are too damn low.
The GOP aren’t doing a god damn thing.
This is why I’m voting blue straight down the ticket. I literally don’t care who it is. It could be Bibi in a Groucho mask with an AIPAC pin, or mecha-Joseph-Stalin seizing the means of meme production— I literally don’t care, if they will stand up to Trump and actually focus on someone other than themselves, they have my vote.
alfaafla | 12 hours ago
Gop strat is tariffs and quasi isolationism to intentionally make things more expensive to " bring back the jobs from China ".
-wnr- | 13 hours ago
Well maybe more of those Americans shouldn't have voted for a guy who ran on implementing massive import taxes on almost everything they buy.
Actual-General-4953 | 14 hours ago
I call bs on this.
None of this is stopping everyone from spending money.
I hear and see the inflation. Not sure how some make it but those same people are going to Los Cabos or the Dominican.