Renters need to make roughly $20,000 more a year to afford the typical rent than they did 5 years ago
Renters need to make roughly $20,000 more a year to afford the typical rent than they did 5 years ago
“Since pre-pandemic, the income needed to afford rent has increased by 31.5%,” Zillow’s chief economist, Skylar Olsen, wrote yesterday.
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Naw, naw, it's cool... see, surely their income went up 30% in 5 years, right?... Right?
They did not, but it’s ok because they’re just feeling it wrong this year. Maybe someone should tell them how to feel about the economy so their income and expenses won’t matter anymore.
But we matched inflation last year! That means everything's okay now doesn't it? The inflation from previous years just goes away!
And it's totally not an average skewed higher by higher paying jobs right?. Us working class people didn't get shit. I listened to a nurse the other day complain that they were only getting cost of living adjustments instead of a "real raise." Like holy shit a lot of us got nothing. I'm making the same thing as I was during the pandemic and my money is worth the equivalent of $6 less per hour due to inflation.
We beat inflation
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/eci.nr0.htm
Check the constant dollar column, all positive
You should really read your sources. The chart is not inflation adjusted. The report tells you the 12 month inflation adjusted figure.
Inflation-adjusted wages and salaries increased 0.8 percent for the 12 months ending March 2024.
Oh yeah we beat the pants off inflation! Whew baby! Oh by the way, there's still the preceding years of wild fucking inflation to make back. As well as the decades of stagnant wages versus inflation.
I did read my sources, because when I said we beat inflation, that's what my source says
Decades of stagnant wages
Good news, we had more than a decade of growing wages (the COVID spike is due to compositional effects)
A. You don't know how medians work. In a set of [1,1,1,1,5,8,9,9,9] 5 is the median. But you wouldn't say that's representative of the average worker. You're looking for the mode. Which would be 1 in that data set.
B. .8 percent is not the hot news you're looking for.
5 is more representative than the mode, since it does show that about half make more and half made less
1 is ignoring the rest of the data completely
If this was a representative sample the ones would have rebelled already. This is a teaching example.
It did, actually: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881500Q
951 to 1136, Q1 2020 to Q1 2024.
+19.45% from Q1 2020, which doesn't help you if rent is +30% and inflation in general hit +9%.
Q1 2019 was 899, so +26%, a little closer.
But the REAL problem is workers don't see that gain unless they change jobs. Working the same job year after year you're lucky to get 4% per year.
+19.45% from Q1 2020, which doesn't help you if rent is +30% and inflation in general hit +9%.
Which means workers are making more overall. You don't pay just rent, but a complete basket of goods. If wages are up 19% while the basket of goods is up 9%, then workers have more money in their pocket.
There will often be some individual thing that sticks out in the basket. If not rent, then maybe food. If not food, then maybe energy. That can tell us where to focus policy to reduce inflation. It doesn't tell us that workers make less money in real terms.
But the REAL problem is workers don't see that gain unless they change jobs. Working the same job year after year you're lucky to get 4% per year.
This is a big problem. Companies do not value loyalty.
Lesse... in 2020 we had a .5% CoL and up to 2% performance because of economic uncertainty... most people didn't notice because of CERB (Canadian PPP)... In 2021 there were concerns about economic stagnation so it was a 1% CoL and up to 1.3% raise. 2022 we had a bad sales year (commissions were supplemented to retain sales) so 1% CoL, up to 1% raise and .75% bonus. And this year our PE firm is clamping down so 1.5% CoL, .5% performance raise and a 1% bonus due to continued inflation grumbling.