…
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.
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.
Payday loans caused such a problem for young and dumb military members that there’s a law about how much interest they can charge military members, and subsequently won’t loan to military members.
We need those predatory interest laws to protect everyone.
But it’s depressing as fuck the rates are so predatory it literally had a negative impact on the US military.
Because the military is mostly young guys with no financial literacy who are suddenly handed more money than they know what to deal with. It’s just the extreme scenario of the average American. (Maybe your average person, or even your average animal, but I don’t know enough to say.)
who are suddenly handed more money than they know what to deal with.
Lol…
The military doesn’t pay that well. It’s just a steady paycheck.
The signup bonuses can be pretty large depending on your placement exam.
When I was a young dumb 18 year old that wanted to be a doctor, I thought the army would be a good way to do that debt free.
They offered me something like 25 grand if I signed up that day.
That’sa lot of cash for an 18 year old.
25k for enlisted is insane…
When I was in, they didn’t even give that much to nuclear engineers to do 6 years…
Was it like Sept 15th 2001 or something when you signed up?
Oh I didn’t sign.
Someone offers you a sack full of cash to do something, you better start finding a dentist to look at that gift horse.
A friend went through the army program starting at med school around 20 years ago. She just got her Oncology surgeon cert, which is ridiculously deep in the medical doctor qualifications.
Seems like the program was effective to me. She had to move around quite a bit, but she also got access to the best hospital programs.
I definitely was dubious about the entire idea of signing with the army, but it worked for her.
Yup. And for most of those guys, they haven’t had that before. (Also food and housing is generally free for junior enlisted, so they don’t really have much in the way of bills, either. Cell phone, Xbox Live, and that girl’s onlyfans who is really into me I swear)
Other people are just as vulnerable though why protect only some people?
It probably wouldn’t have passed if it wasn’t For The Troops™.
Also… inflation is always there. My parents made a laughable amount of money together compared to what I make. The only difference is time. Once time passes your income becomes smaller than the new generations. Thus making you eventually homeless after retirement.
I hope these words help others understand how inflation is another tool to make us work our ass off during our useful life and then make good riddance of us after we’re no longer useful.
This is why you save money while you’re working and plan for retirement inclusive of inflation. You retire with a fixed income that is built with annual inflation in mind. It’s not “designed” to keep anyone poor. That’s utter nonsense.
I often see the 25% figure cited, but my own receipts have shown 50%+ increases in the same time period. I never buy brand name or much in the way of snacks. Is the 25% figure obtained by making substitutions like switching to store brand? I don’t have much leeway there since I already go for no frills groceries. I would be very interested in knowing how they determine “only” a 25% increase in prices over that period of time.
This time around, issues such as immigration and fitness for office are also top of many voters’ minds, while economic trends appear to be moving in the right direction.
Grocery prices were up just 1% over the past 12 months, well within historic norms; and the cost of a few items, including rice, fish, apples, potatoes, and milk, has even come down a bit.
As major chains such as Target, Amazon and Walmart announce price cuts in recent weeks, there are signs the situation could continue to improve.
Some analysts also expect wages, which have increased but trailed the leap in overall prices, to finally catch up this year, providing further relief.
“We’re on the right track,” says Sarah Foster, who follows the economy for Bankrate.com. “Wage growth has slowed, price growth has slowed but, you know, prices are slowing at a much faster rate than wages.”
Stephen Lemelin, a 49-year-old father of two from Michigan, another electoral battleground, says he was pleasantly surprised by lower prices on a recent supermarket trip.
Whatever his concerns about the economy, the military veteran says his support for Mr Biden, who got his vote in 2020, has never been in doubt, given that he sees Trump as a threat to democracy.
“Nobody likes high interest rates or high inflation but that’s not under presidential control,” he says. “If you know politics, there’s really only one choice.”
if you plebs don’t downgrade how will we subsidize billionaires and corporations?
“We’re on the right track,” says Sarah Foster, who follows the economy for Bankrate.com. “Wage growth has slowed, price growth has slowed but, you know, prices are slowing at a much faster rate than wages.”
total horse shit
went to the grocery store two weeks ago and prices were higher than the previous week and this week the price seems higher still and wages seem like they are getting smaller
A surprisingly even-handed article. Figures that the BBC seems the most capable of fairly reporting American domestic news.
