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Are you better off than you were four years ago? It can be a murky picture for many
(www.nbcnews.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2024
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I've voted D every time. This question is ridiculous because most people are NOT better off and those that are, are all on the low end of the financial spectrum where the short term income gains have made a difference.
Even the best stats I see from the Democrats show 8% better income adjusted for inflation. That's awesome! But what inflation? The low fed number. Not the CPI.
This means for anyone who purchases things, or where purchasing things is a larger proportion of their income which is everyone below the top 0.5% or 1% in the USA, your effective wage has gone down 10% to 40% depending on what your personal income raise was. Those that job hopped, are only down a bit. Those that didn't are screwed.
Everytime this question gets asked, I look around and not a single person I know is better off now from income. Not a damn one. You know what is doing better? Stock portfolios. I have them, I'm up. My friends have them, they're up. We have traded realized daily losses in living for stock market unrealized gains. The average person doesn't have stocks. They just get shafted completely.
It's incomprehensible to me how low Democrats have gone to just blatantly lie and gas light. That's a Republican move. And every one of the people smart enough to actually think, gets a little more pissed off when they're gas lit into trying to believe that 20% year over year multiple years in a row of inflation is good. That's batshit.
Everyone who works a white collar job for a medium or large company should have access to a 401k or some other investment vehicle but I understand that many can't afford to fully utilize those benefits even if those benefits are available. The exec class gets richer as their portfolios gain value, as they tend to get compensatory stock. Everyone else takes an "L" to make that happen.
A rank-and-file accountant or developer can still set themselves up for retirement but they have to start early and be extremely aggressive.
I agree that with inflation, there are perverse incentives created. Most peoples jobs do not have any guarantee of annual raises, performance based or cost of living based. Effectively you are taking a pay cut each year due to inflation. This passively makes every company environment worse, because the only way to gain compensation is to jump ship to another job. Those who are capable and motivated will try to parlay every job into a better job within 6 months, and that makes it impossible to build up capabilities and culture. It effectively makes everyones job suck more, whether you stay or leave.