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| ▲ | darth_avocado 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| 1. PCE tracks spending by and on behalf of households, including employer-paid health insurance and government-funded medical programs like Medicare. Arguably this does not reflect out-of-pocket costs or the immediate cash-flow reality experienced by a regular household. 2. Shelter accounts for roughly 34% of the CPI, whereas it makes up only about 16% to 17% of the PCE which underplays the pressures of housing people face. Housing arguably is one of the most basic necessity and people will spend on it. 3. PCE also famously isn’t based on household surveys like CPI which means it doesn’t accurately represent the actual inflation either. 4. PCE also doesn’t accurately represent lifestyle downgrades even though it tracks them. PCE will capture if you swap chicken for beef (like people are doing right now) but the conclusion you’ll come to is that people have the same amount of spending power as before. |
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| ▲ | vlovich123 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I feel like people complain about “food” but it’s a stand-in and that the cumulative increase in rent, transportation and food probably rose faster than wages. So Cato reply “but food hasn’t grown as fast as wages” is a myopic retort (admittedly one they acknowledge) that tries to fight the narrow factual argument ignoring the broader one where the emotional narrative probably remains true. |
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| ▲ | pj_mukh 29 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Also we can probably simplify this bucket even more and just talk about the elephant in the room which is rent/mortgage. It’s 30 to 50% of most peoples paycheck, it’s really the piece that matters and the one that is most complicated to solve. | | |
| ▲ | infinite_spin 4 minutes ago | parent [-] | | a friend showed me their budget recently, and about 45 hours of their wages go to rent each month (for a single room in a house with roommates). That seems very high to me, and their rent is considered "low" in their area (a small suburb) |
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| ▲ | jparishy an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Hey thanks for posting this perspective w/ the link. Fun rabbit hole to go down stuck in a hotel tonight. I wonder if you think something explanatory is missing in _all_ of these different indices, in the "where there's smoke, there's fire" sense of economic anxiety on display today |
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| ▲ | openasocket 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I’m not necessarily disputing your point, but it’s very odd to downplay one source for potential bias, and then follow up with a study from the CATO Institute. Like, the CATO institute is openly a libertarian think tank founded by one of the Koch brothers. I also think it’s unfair to look at just food prices. Housing and healthcare have bloomed massively. |
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| ▲ | rpcope1 19 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > calls a labor advocacy group biased > Links the fucking CATO institute Pot, meet kettle |
