US consumers remain unimpressed with this progress, however, because they remember what they were paying for things pre-pandemic. Used car prices are 34% higher, food prices are 26% higher and rent prices are 22% higher than in January 2020, according to our calculations using PCE data.
While these are some of the more extreme examples of recent price increases, the average basket of goods and services that most Americans buy in any given month is 17% more expensive than four years ago.
I'm not a R but the Democrats seriously need to stop pushing this shitty "economy is awesome" narrative. Because everytime someone hears it who isn't feeling the economy, it makes them hate the Democrats a little more. Staying home and not voting because your candidate has pissed you off, is just as bad.
For anyone who hasn't recieved a 20% pay increase, the economy is not good. In fact you'd need about a 35% to 50% pay increase to be feeling the same as you did pre pandemic. If you job hopped during the super awesome fun times of Covid hiring and got a boost in salary, then yeah you're new salary offset by new higher prices makes the economy feel better than it was.
But if you're the majority of people who did not get 50% adjustments, you are having a bad time. You are factually worse off financially than you were.
The idea of blaming who or what made the bad economy is a lost game. Bush tanked the economy, Obama got the blame. Trump tanked the economy, Biden got the blame. But just because Biden didn't tank it, doesn't mean it isn't tanked.
There is nobody, not a single person, I know of that is doing better today than 2020.