tldr
END the FED.
ABOLISH the IRS.
DEPORT ALL ILLEGALS!
There, I fixed it for you.
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It’s a lot worse than the standard economic data suggests.
Economists simply compare wages, and prices of common items between say 1950, and today.
When you do that it’s about the same. In 1950 you could get a big mac for 25c, and earn $2.50 an hour min wage. 10x.
Today it’s about $1.50, so $15 an hour is the same. That’s where the $15 an hour min. wage idea came from.
But the whole point is to compare value received per dollar, not how much.
That 1950’s big solid oak cabinet, made mostly by hand, from american products, in america, was way more value for the money than a mass produced in china smart TV. The increase in technology has actually made production cheaper, not more expensive. It cost much more time and energy in the 50’s to make tubes and such for a TV, than it costs today to make some chips and solder boards with machines and assemble them at 30 per hour.
If this was all done in the US, that would be bad enough, but it’s all done in poor nations, with poor labor laws at pennies on the dollar.
Even that big mac is far different. Back then they didn’t have all the preservation methods. So most food was much more local, and fresh.
Imagine what you’d pay at a restaurant today for a burger made with local, fresh ingredients. Probably at least $10.
That would mean the min wage today would need to be $100 an hour to equal 1950’s prosperity.
Ok, most restaurants aren’t mcdonalds, who was super efficient. So cut it in half to $5. So the min wage today should be $50 an hour.
Technology increasing efficiancy, and outsourcing lowering costs, have enabled us to make things at least 10x cheaper than in the 50’s. That must be taken into account when determining inflation.
Companies might say they developed the tech, so they deserve the profits. But we developed a great deal of the tech in our public funded universities.
We shoudl be benefiting from these advances.