The unemployment is low because people have a gun to their head. Inflation is falling, but it’s not zero, therefore everything is still getting more expensive.
eCoNoMiCs.
Someone feel free to explain these two simultaneous headlines-
You can buy a tv for cheaper than a loaf of bread.
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Since I’m just renting, I have more disposable income for luxury shopping.
I know no one with a lower rent than my mortgage. Literally no one.
Your mortgage isn’t an option for me (or any renters) though. I get to choose between current rate+price mortgages and current rent prices. Median rent in my county is $1,250. The cheapest non-manufactured home listed on Zillow in my county with the lowest APR advertised (assuming a credit score of 760+) would have a mortgage payment of $1,642. That’s without any of the HOI, taxes, commissions, maintenance, PMI, HOA, or other associated costs.
I likely do, nice to meet you.
I also don’t pay taxes, maintenance, or homeowners insurance. I only have to pay to insure my things.
You can argue those costs are baked into my $1250 rent, and you’re probably right, but I guarantee it’s less than your mortgage and associated costs would be where I live.
I’d say you’re spot on with this, I’d love to see the stats of spending prior to black Friday… betting it was lower than all last years.
The Black Friday article in the picture basically explains the last part of your comment. Everyone waited for sales all year and spent now
Plus people are maxing out debt
Probably this, on the heels of: https://lemmy.world/post/8643298
So spending is probably up, but it’s just deepening the debt hole. We’ll see where the bottom of that is soon enough…
Sure, no problem. Spending rose by 7.5%, inflation until recent months was at 10%. Net real sales is down by 3.5%. People are spending more for less. This is why we are gloomy. Still, I recognize things are getting better on the macro level.
People who feel bad buy things to feel better. They might not be able to afford a new house or a car or medical care, but they’ll spend something on gifts.
Also, maybe it’s members of the owning class buying things. They’re getting more money all the time, whether the economy does “good” or not. So they’ve always got money to blow on shit.
Plus it specifically says online sales. Online sales could be up 7.5%, but brick and mortar store sales could be down 50% for all we know.
I can’t remember the last time people felt good about the economy.
I can… but I was born in the 70s
I’d say it was pre-2008, but I was born in the 90s.
Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that when the economy restabilizes, that doesn’t mean the cost of consumer goods go down or wages go up, it just means the billionaires running the show aren’t losing millions
Because those two metrics are meaningless for the average person.
Inflation is trending down… After it skyrocketed and is still way above affordable ranges.
Employment rates are high… But those jobs don’t pay living wages.
Go check how much savings the average American has, check what an average doctor’s visit costs, and then maybe you’ll understand the gloom.
Median figures are more accurate and scarier than average.
Because it’s a bullshit narrative. Cost of living keeps going up. But inflation doesn’t count rent, groceries, or gas.
Rent is going to go up as long as it’s able.
As soon as people have more money to spend, landlords increase rent.
Renting is one of the biggest scams this generation has convinced itself into falling for.
lol yeah dude, I convinced myself to rent
I mean, you live in a major city so yeah.
You’re probably never going to leave major cities, nor are you ever going to own property in them.
Yeah. You convinced yourself to rent.
I live in rural Iowa wtf are you talking about? We rent out here too!
I actually am paying off my trailer, though, so someday I could maybe put this on a piece of rural property somewhere and do remote work or something? But like, I never chose this shit - I just stayed where I grew up and got a factory job when my neurosis and undiagnosed dysphoria caused me to flunk out of college. I guess I could go squat in the woods though lol
Its pretty insane we don’t invest in our cities anymore when they’re the powerhouse of the economy. Not to mention they’re a way better use of land than suburbs and rural living. You can find affordable places in Tokyo and so many other cities worldwide that dwarf ours in almost every metric. Cities really aren’t the problem, they are actually the potential solution if we change our policies around them and attempt to catch up with countries like Japan.
I wasn’t able to afford to buy a house until I was over 50 years old, it took a global pandemic, a complete shutdown of the economy, and working from home for multiple years to bank the cash to make it happen.
People don’t rent because they CHOOSE to.
How much was your house?
Listed for $374,000, but I had to bid up to $390,000 to get it.
Yeah, you didn’t have to spend anywhere near that much.
But you wanted to, so you did.
To buy a house where I live, that’s a bargain!
Yeah, there are plenty of other places you can live though.
slaps forehead wait I can just buy a house? What a solution!! So easy!
I never said it would be easy.
Do you only do things if they are easy?
You are being sarcastic but a lot of people who are convinced they can’t afford it actually could afford to own the place they rent and have just never crunched the numbers.
Before the rate hike this was probably true, but most areas haven’t adjusted to people having about 100k less buying power.
Hold on everyone, this 17 year old is gonna explain why we’re all idiots
This generation? Fucking Romans were complaining about high rent for shitty apartments over 2000 years ago. Don’t be a dumbass.
Right… and no generation since has ever seen the value of owning property, right? Lol.
Mark Twain was right. It’s easier to fool someone than to convince them they’d been fooled.
See how mad people get in this comment section when someone points out they’re being taken for a ride? One person even said they won’t get off the ride if it isn’t “easy.” Lol.
Supply and demand. You’re not exempt from them.
Quoting someone much smarter than you doesn’t enhance your unintelligible argument. It makes it dramatically worse.
Oh boy, we got one.
Right… and no generation since has ever seen the value of owning property, right? Lol.
Are you under the impression that modern renters are choosing to rent instead of own?
60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck making saving for a down payment impossible for over half the country, and with rates being what they are, mortgages are expensive af.
People are renting because it’s the only way to live, not because they think it’s neat. People are getting upset at you not because you’re pointing out that rent is a scam, but because you’re implying it’s the fault of the victims
For what it’s worth gas has come down quite a bit the last few weeks.
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“Why Americans feel gloomy about the economy despite paying a lot more for things than the official inflation numbers claim and having a wage that isn’t rising as high as official numbers claim”
Not to leave out unemployment has run out for thousands, making the numbers look good.
Exactly. When my benefits ran out 2 months ago, I no longer showed up as unemployed. Thankfully, I finally got a job after nine months of anxiety.
While I have a better income than before, it’s only about 10%, while prices on everything (that i need for daily survival) went up at least 20%, and food nearly doubled. No way I can get a house - those prices went up at least 40% here in the last 4 years. New car? Fuggettaboutit. Basic sedans going for 30k! Used ones probably for $24k, from what I read. Since when does COBRA at $1900 per month for one person make sense? It’s a slap in the face.
Didn’t the student loan moratorium also end? Something started back, maybe evictions too. None of it is good.
Oh boy inflation is falling.
Unless it’s greedy C-level execs falling out of windows there won’t be a change in the cost. The issue is greed, inflation was just the scapegoat.
It also kinda glances over the fact that the boost of inflation is there permanently and this is the new baseline, and no wages have kept up to it at all while everyone is getting nickel and dimed to death.
I don’t get this argument. If everything is greedily overpriced why not just go into business for yourself? Like if eggs are so overpriced, go buy chickens and start selling eggs. Prices will go down. Complaining about greed or expecting the government to do something won’t help anything. That’s the real reason Americans feel gloomy, they keep expecting someone else to do something, like the government or c-level executives.
I grow a lot of my own produce and am looking into a chicken coop, funnily enough.
I don’t expect handouts or the government to step in. My point was that I’m not gonna cheer about inflation falling because the problem is something different entirely. Inflation is just a symptom of the real issue.
You can stop being obtuse and trying to deflect blame away from greedy corpo twats whenever you’d like.
I wish I lived in your fantasy world where individuals who are being adversely affected by the cost of eggs can still somehow magically not only afford the startup costs of a farm, and manage to not only sell eggs at prices beating out major agribusiness, but can also do so at a sufficient scale to affect system-level change. What absolute starry-eyed naivete.
I wish I lived in your fantasy world where individuals who are being adversely affected by the cost of eggs can still somehow magically not only afford the startup costs of a farm, and manage to not only sell eggs at prices beating out major agribusiness, but can also do so at a sufficient scale to affect system-level change. What absolute starry-eyed naivete.
You can raise chickens in about a square meter of space, you don’t need a farm…plus you missed the point, that was merely an example. Point is, stop complaining and expecting things to be fixed for you. Do something constructive.
Alright, so what individual actions are you personally undertaking to affect the kinds of systemic change we need for our economy to work for all of us? Surely if your ideology is founded on reality, you’re making real change, right?
For me, personally, I am advocating for policy changes that would benefit us. My efficacy is limited, because my only real option is to bother my elected officials about it when I’m not busy working longer hours for lower real wages just to survive, but given that I believe policy changes are the only way to actually solve any of our systemic problems, I am at least ideologically consistent.
It also kinda glances over the fact that the boost of inflation is there permanently and this is the new baseline, and no wages have kept up to it at all while everyone is getting nickel and dimed to death.
I don’t get this argument. If everything is greedily overpriced why not just go into business for yourself? Like if eggs are so overpriced, go buy chickens and start selling eggs. Prices will go down. Complaining about greed or expecting the government to do something won’t help anything. That’s the real reason Americans feel gloomy, they keep expecting someone else to do something, like the government or c-level executives.
$4 for a bag of potato chips.
25ct for 3 decent potatoes at my town.
SACK of 50 pounds for 12$ Wanna start a business?
My son graduated with a degree in economics in 2020 and still hasn’t found a job. He’s not counted in the unemployment numbers because he hasn’t filed for benefits. We need to look at labor participation as well as underemployment instead of the useless stats being used in this article. Real wages have tanked. People are running up debt just to buy groceries. It’s desperate out there.
He’s not counted in the unemployment numbers because he hasn’t filed for benefits.
That’s untrue. From the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
In the Current Population Survey, people are classified as unemployed if they meet all of the following criteria:
- They were not employed during the survey reference week.
- They were available for work during the survey reference week, except for temporary illness.
- They made at least one specific, active effort to find a job during the 4-week period ending with the survey reference week (see active job search methods) OR they were temporarily laid off and expecting to be recalled to their job.
There are other statistics measuring unemployment claims, but when you hear, “the unemployment rate for Oct 2023 is 3.9%”, that is unrelated to benefits.
Because interest rates are insane trapping people in homes they no longer want but can’t afford to leave?
Speaking of… My car got totalled at the end of October, shopping for a new one, I saw interest rates for me between 7 and 8%, for other folks, I saw one as high as 12.25%(!) On a CAR LOAN.
Because interest rates are insane trapping people in homes they no longer want but can’t afford to leave?
I’m in this comment and I don’t like it.
Least you got a home. I am on a very long lease and landlord is getting offers. I got about 2.5 years until someone just offers him a million bucks in cash. Then I am out thousands of dollars in moving expense plus changing my kids school. Plan to fight it but I am sure I will lose.
“most prices are high and still rising” Pretty obvious that corporations are price gouging to get their friendly fascist lifetime dictator back in power.
Because the ‘numbers’ that neoliberals have decided are the indicators of a “good” economy mean almost nothing to, in all likely hood, 95% of Americans.
Measuring the right thing leads to inconvenient conclusions (age till retirement, income at retirement, income independence, buying power, home ownership, business ownership, union membership, etc.)
I love that they chose a term to further muddy the waters between conservatives and liberals.
I hear neoliberal and I think, “huh, is the a new liberal?” Nope. It’s the exact fucking opposite.
That term isn’t new nor is it meant to muddy any waters. Liberals are not leftists.
That’s exactly what leftists are. The left is liberal. The right is conservative.
Whenever you see reference to neoliberalism or someone mentions ‘leftists’ relative to ‘liberals’ it is in context with classical liberalism.
The wiki page is a pretty good jumping off point to understand some of the distinctions and discourse.
No, the left is socialist, the center is liberal, the right is conservative
Outside the US, “liberal” often means “libertarian”, not leftist. The Liberals in the UK and in Australia are very pro-business. The leftist parties in both countries, and elsewhere, call themselves “Labor” not “Liberal”.
In the US, “neo-liberals” often refers to people who wanted to install pro-business regimes in other countries, like Iraq…
Fuck neoliberalism. Glad I found out what it was. It really highlights everything that is wrong with the American economy.
Bloody well hate the neoliberals. One was arguing with me on reddit that because people in Kenya are better off, compared to the 80s, I should stop complaining.
Like ok I am happy for the people of Kenya. I got nothing against them. So yeah good job. Now can my healthcare costs please go down? Because I am pretty confident that they can and the people of Kenya can also be doing well. One really doesn’t impact the other that much.
Like they even give a shit about Kenya. Just blatant manipulation.
No, you see, because TVs have gotten consistently cheaper (they’re like the only thing to have done so), everything’s working!
And the main reason they’re cheaper is because all of them are data harvesting machines. What a fun world where even your habits are a commodity!
… because my purchasing power is much lower than two years ago and my wages aren’t remotely keeping up with profiteering inflation? Because I have to be very careful around Christmas to not overspend and I get to explain to the kids why there’s only a few presents under the tree? They’ll be okay with it, but as a person who has children to take care of it, it’s crushing to go backwards year to year in what you’re able to provide? Because a 3/4 full shopping cart today (not much meat) was $179 today? And we have a fixed rate mortgage! I can’t envision the pressures people who are renting or trying to buy a home right now are going through. Anyone saying “it’s all good out there!” can get fucked.
No kids to take care of, but my fridge just went out today. This spoiled most of the food in the fridge as I can’t pick up a new one until tomorrow, and the of a new fridge and restocking my fridge pretty much cancels Xmas gifts for the family. I feel bad every year because they get my wife and I all kinds of cool stuff and it seems like every year I’m stuck telling them, “Maybe I’ll be less broke next year” Not quite the same, I know, but it still makes me feel aweful…
Meanwhile the owner of my company just bought a 5th wheel camper trailer and hitch for his truck in June because he felt like going camping, and is having a 6 bedroom house built for his son on his ranch because his sons wife is having a baby.
This world is fucked for the working class truly.
If it isn’t too late. Buy an absolute fuck ton of ice. It’ll keep the food cold enough.
Wait… All your food spoiled in a single day? Was your fridge made of cardboard? It should be able to remain cold for at least a day, probably 2-3.
It’s from 1986 and not insulated well. Between that and my wife keeping the thermostat and mordor temp, and opening the fridge for long periods of time not knowing it wasn’t working, it turned into a hotbox.
This isn’t probably what you want to hear right now, but I’ve been much happier giving homemade gifts to family and friends. I found a couple of things people really enjoy that I make and they all look forward to it every year. For me, it’s pork jerky. That might not work for you because you need a dehydrator but I can post the recipe if you want. It’s a lot of work so no one ever makes it, but when they receive it for Christmas they know I put a lot of time and love in and I really think that’s what Christmas should be about. It’s really cheap… Mostly two or three large pork loins covers my entire Christmas list.
Other family members have started to do the same. My brother makes really good homemade caramel popcorn. My sister made some rum infusion to give out. Another sister even one time even made Dominoes somehow with resin.
If you are able to find time and energy to spread your love for your family and friends Christmas is a lot of fun.
This is a great idea! But I will have to go with something other than meat. A fair amount of my wife’s side of the family is vegetarian. I’m also not that great at cooking lol one of my thoughts this year was to do some of my stencil spraypaints on canvas, as I have a huge stock of canvases and spray paint I never used when I stopped doing it years ago. I just wish I had more time to create some stencils.
Dang, I was just thinking about how my mom got a raise years ago when I was still a kid and it practically changed our life. All of a sudden we were eating out more. All of a sudden we had nicer things. All of a sudden my mom wasn’t stressed anymore.
It’s sad to see how people are now experiencing the opposite of that. It’s sad they’re experiencing that when, in absolute terms, we are more productive than ever.
Greed really is the worst thing we face as a species in the modern age. It’s a shame so many people are gung-ho about supporting it.
The disparity in wealth needs to shrink instead of grow. Otherwise, these problems will only get worse over time.
I can’t believe how expensive thanksgiving shopping was this year. I hit nearly 200 dollars.
We hit $200 very easily just buying household essentials, it seems like. Heaven help us if we need paper towels, toilet paper, contact solution, the ‘cheap’ shampoo and conditioner, plus a few cleaning supplies all at the same time. $200 comes at you fast on those shopping days.
I really wish news outlets would stop pretending this is some big mystery. Shit is too expensive.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
- Upton Sinclair, 1934
IMO it’s the inverse, we don’t make enough. The 1% have been keeping wages stagnant. We can’t stop the price of goods from going up, but we can increase pay from it sharing the bottom line. As soon as interest rates re-appeared, all the free money that was sitting around for the taking disappeared. Sooner than later, we’ll be paying micro-transactions for crap that was previously able to be paid for by selling us ads. But that money isn’t coming back to us.
