whatever American consumers say about the state of the economy, they are spending as if their finances are in pretty good shape. Most recently, holiday sales appear to have been quite good.
…
Americans aren’t acting as if they’re terrified about crime. As I’ve written before, major downtowns have seen weekend foot traffic — roughly speaking, the number of people visiting the city for fun rather than work — recover to prepandemic levels, which isn’t what you’d expect if Americans were fleeing violent urban hellscapes.
This last year people have seen a cost of living jump across the board because of “inflation”.
Have you noticed how many online services offer payment plans on things as cheap as $10? To me that doesn’t sound like everything is ok. To me that looks more like people trying to pretend like it’s ok while barely getting by.
Yes, inflation happened. And for the bulk of the population, wages went up even more. Doesn’t mean that there is no pain, but things actually got better for a lot of folks.
Repeatedly telling that lie will never make it true
That’s what I’m saying, it didn’t happen. According to public records many companies that provide necessary items like food and diapers blamed inflation on price increases while their product costs dropped, making TONs of money off the common American.
Robert Reich talks about Huggies in particular
The stats literally show that prices went up but wages went up more.
There are specific subgroups for whom that has not happened. But for the population as a whole, it did
I’d have to see your stats because I don’t believe that statement on it’s face.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Note that layoffs during the pandemic disproportionately affected low income workers resulting in a spike in apparent wages