'I’m making the most money I've ever made, and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck'

“There’s this wild disconnect between what people are experiencing and what economists are experiencing,” says Nikki Cimino, a recruiter in Denver.

  • SeaJ
    115•9 months ago

    Important to note:

    Companies aren’t just raising prices enough to cover costs, they’re padding their margins on top.

    Just saying that their profit is higher means nothing because of inflation. Inflation will mean that their profits are more often than not the highest they have ever been every year. But the highest margins? That shows they are price gouging.

    • @roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      97•9 months ago

      If you want to know how bad we’re being fucked, search for the PPI, the producer price index. CPI, the one we always hear about, is the measure of inflation to us, the consumer. The PPI is the measure of inflation to producers, what they pay for goods and services to produce the goods and services we buy.

      The PPI has been back to “normal” for a while now. Pretty much as soon as the post COVID logistics issues were mostly ironed out. The difference between PPI and CPI changes is almost all profit.

      We don’t get daily articles on the PPI though, I wonder why.

      Tell people about PPI whenever you can, online or off, the more people know, the better. It’s easy enough to say inflation is just down to greed but being able to back it up by comparing two simple charts will help people really understand.

      PPI

      CPI

      • @TheDoozer@lemmy.world
        10•9 months ago

        I couldn’t find a comparable historical CPI chart on the BLS website, just a 12 month average and historical data by region. Are you able to find something to compare that chart to? It’s kind of difficult to grasp intuitively (without a comparison, that is).

        • @roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          17•9 months ago

          I edited the links to try to get more apples to apples. For the PPI just deselect the blue line and compare red lines between the two. Those should give 12 month change numbers for all goods and services unless I screwed it up.

          Edit: I edited the links again, I accidentally used final demand instead of intermediate demand for PPI. No need to deselect anything now. I linked the chart for processed goods, other categories are available in the drop-down list.