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)