In the US, at least, the long term average is 3.10%, including the post-1913 Great Depression and the Oil Crisis/Great Inflation of the 1970s. From 1990-2020, the average has been 2.2%, just slightly worse than the stated goal of current US economic policy, which is to maintain long term inflation at a rate of 2%.
We had two consecutive years of 6-8% general inflation in Spain, and lots of raw food products almost doubled in size, and while that went down a while ago, they still stayed at a 30% increase. Salaries didn’t increase though, most companies in my sector gave a fat round 0 increase as a baseline, then a 4-5% increase for people that excelled in performance.
Yeah we do earn way more than the minimum wage but we are basically earning less than last year, every year.
Well if we use the US - we have to acknowledge that the actual rate of inflation is not on that chart. For starters it does not even take into account Shrinkflation - a trend that is not new. Secondly - the calculation changes to make inflation appear significantly lower for multiple reasons.
Then there are problems that CPI doesn’t cover housing costs anymore. And it allows nonsensical substitution. Such as implying that if you are used to buying $10 Roast Chicken - and are now forced to buy $2 Canned Chicken - you have experienced deflation. But in reality you cannot afford the roast chicken because of high inflation and your standard of living has gone down.
For what country?
In the US, at least, the long term average is 3.10%, including the post-1913 Great Depression and the Oil Crisis/Great Inflation of the 1970s. From 1990-2020, the average has been 2.2%, just slightly worse than the stated goal of current US economic policy, which is to maintain long term inflation at a rate of 2%.
Meaning, 3% beats inflation significantly more than half of the time, especially since 1990.
We had two consecutive years of 6-8% general inflation in Spain, and lots of raw food products almost doubled in size, and while that went down a while ago, they still stayed at a 30% increase. Salaries didn’t increase though, most companies in my sector gave a fat round 0 increase as a baseline, then a 4-5% increase for people that excelled in performance.
Yeah we do earn way more than the minimum wage but we are basically earning less than last year, every year.
Well if we use the US - we have to acknowledge that the actual rate of inflation is not on that chart. For starters it does not even take into account Shrinkflation - a trend that is not new. Secondly - the calculation changes to make inflation appear significantly lower for multiple reasons.
https://www.fedsmith.com/2023/04/19/inflation-severity-depends-how-its-measured/
https://www.cnbc.com/id/42551209
Then there are problems that CPI doesn’t cover housing costs anymore. And it allows nonsensical substitution. Such as implying that if you are used to buying $10 Roast Chicken - and are now forced to buy $2 Canned Chicken - you have experienced deflation. But in reality you cannot afford the roast chicken because of high inflation and your standard of living has gone down.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-macroeconomics/chapter/examining-the-consumer-price-index/
We have too many measures tied to Poverty Rate and Inflation that it’s a quagmire to change it to reflect reality.