• jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    7 months ago

    Biden doesn’t get the credit because from a purely pocketbook perspective, prices are still going up.

    Telling the average citizen “Hey, you know, inflation is only 3%, not 9.9% like it was…

    They’re going “Yeah, but it’s an extra 3% ON TOP of the 9%.”

    And yeah, there’s a lot of factors… corporate greed, bird flu raising the price of eggs, etc. etc. The average person doesn’t care about that, all they care is their weekly grocery bill keeps going up and there’s no sign of it coming back down.

    https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-prices-and-spending/

    “Average annual food-at-home prices were 5.0 percent higher in 2023 than in 2022. For context, the 20-year historical level of retail food price inflation is 2.5 percent per year.”

    Good time to buy pork though I guess!

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        7 months ago

        I did, there was zero mention of how food prices went up 9.9% in 2022, another 5% in 2023 and are still going up.

        https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings/

        https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-prices-and-spending/

        It’s no surprise Biden doesn’t get credit for “the economy”, it’s because your average American is spending more, getting less, and not seeing the benefit.

        You can’t talk about the economy without talking about pocketbook issues and this article bends over backwards to avoid saying anything about that.

        • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          not to mention housing still is unaffordable.

          The economy currently has an outlier problem where a few very rich people are posting massive gains. As soon as you remove them from the analysis the portrait is a grim picture of austerity and price fixing.

            • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              daily costs for most people have risen and rich people tend to have less of their income spent on the things actually going up in price so my guess is wages are a response.

              • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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                7 months ago

                Okay, let me be a little more complete since “inflation adjusted” seems to be confusing and I feel like maybe you’re not the only one.

                Per capita income, current dollars:

                • 2019: $55,311
                • 2020: $53,811
                • 2021: $59,905
                • 2022: $64,984

                Now that’s not a fair comparison, because exactly in 2022 was when post-Covid and supply chain and corporate greed fueled inflation to its peak. So, what we do is correct it down to constant dollars, which gives us inflation adjusted income in constant 2015 dollars:

                • 2019: $52,070
                • 2020: $50,024
                • 2021: $53,417
                • 2022: $54,274

                … i.e. even after accounting for the factor you’re claiming means we’re making less, we’re making more.

                Income for the top 10% of wage earners actually went down by about 5% from 2020 to 2022, and income at the bottom tiers (again inflation adjusted) actually went up by enough to counterbalance it and result still was a net gain.

                  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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                    7 months ago

                    At least I haven’t had anyone accuse me of “sealioning” for quite some time. There are some advantages to the main-stream-ification of Lemmy I guess.

    • kromem@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I’ve actually seen price softening on some of the items that went up the most during last year. I know because they were items I used to be buying and then stopped because of price increase, and then now they’ve dropped. Not quite as low as they used to be, but definitely lower than their wish-flation pricing strategy.

    • metalaco@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      But, if a Republican who encouraged austerity through the pandemic, or a centrist who did not provide as much stimulus were in office, then it would have been more likely a repeat or worse than '08 with 10% unemployment… Which shitty situation would you rather have?

      • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        They had to put a sign up at my local grocer in the bacon section “Please note the increased price of bacon” because so many people were gasping at the register and deciding they didn’t want it. Perishable things can’t go back after it’s been in someone’s cart for an unknown amount of time so it was getting thrown out.