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'I had to downgrade my life' - US workers in debt to buy groceries (www.bbc.com)

submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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...

Ms Ellis works full-time as a nurse’s assistant and has a second part-time job.

But she needs to economise. She has switched stores, cut out brand-name items like Dove soap and Stroehmann bread, and all but said goodbye to her favourite Chick-fil-A sandwich.

Still, Ms Ellis has sometimes turned to risky payday loans (short-term borrowing with high interest rates) as she grapples with grocery prices that have surged 25% since Mr Biden entered office in January 2021.

"Prior to inflation," she says, "I didn't have any debt, I didn't have any credit cards, never applied for like a payday loan or any of those things. But since inflation, I needed to do all those things....I’ve had to downgrade my life completely."

The leap in grocery prices has outpaced the historic 20% rise in living costs that followed the pandemic, squeezing households around the country and fuelling widespread economic and political discontent.

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[-] memfree@lemmy.ml 25 points 2 years ago

From https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/inflation-higher-biden-rising-pay-makes-rcna158569 :

"Cumulative wage growth since the start of the pandemic has outpaced price growth across the wage distribution, but the most wage growth has been among lower-wage workers," Bank of America economists wrote in a note to clients Tuesday. "This is likely because labor shortages have been the most acute in blue-collar sectors. While recent wage growth has been distributed more evenly across the distribution, the large cumulative wage gains for lower-income consumers since 4Q 2019 have buffered them against the inflation shock."

I admit that every time I buy groceries, I am shocked by the prices. The thing is: I don't blame the President for it. I blame lax regulation that has allowed monopolies to take over everything and pay workers as little as possible -- particularly by misclassifying them as contractors. I also blame the Supreme Court for ruling in favor of the rich and powerful instead of the the citizenry and/or the institutional expertise within the government (EPA, NIS, etc.).

I'm frustrated that it seems the only people who can garner enough attention to get elected are ALL saying nice things to their base, then creating legislation and/or voting to take power from governmental regulators and experts and just let big businesses so whatever they want -- which ALWAYS boils down to stripping as much money and power as they can from the populace.

Have some links:

this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024

216 points (91.5% liked)

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