Prices are rising for many Americans, with 65% of consumers saying the increases are outpacing their income, according to a J.D. Power survey of 4,000 U.S. adults conducted in February 2026.
Recent inflation data adds to that pressure, with the annual rate rising from 2.4% in February to 3.3% in March, according to consumer price index data released Friday. The increase was driven largely by a surge in energy costs as gasoline prices spiked amid the Iran war. Gasoline prices rose 21.2% in March, accounting for nearly three-quarters of the overall increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
IMHO America has way more Inflation than the Offical Figures.
Because the Official Inflation is matemathically related to the Official GDP (which is the Real GDP, calculated from the Nominal - in USD - GDP by deflating it using the Inflation rate, so more inflation means less GDP), it’s a Politically Important number, complex to determine, with a lot of room for rigging (just change the composition of the “basket” used to calculate it, plus there’s a big difference between including or not Housing costs), generally considered good if small and gets less focus than GDP (GDP Growth is widelly paraded by ruling politicians as a measure of their success, Inflation much less so), so I suspect the political pressure to make Official Inflation figures small is HUGE.
As far as I can tell that official figure has been heavilly rigged for quite a while (though I expect that in Trump’s America it’s worse), hence why the blue collar worker salary which could pay for a house, a car and all the expenses of family of 5 by itself back in the 60s and which according to Inflation has around the same real value as a blue collar worker salary nowadays, can’t pay for anywhere close to that anymore.
(By the way, this is not just a problem in America - you can see the same in Europe - it’s just that judging by the growth in housing costs, food prices and salaries in certain areas, America seems to have had way more inflation since 2008 than Europe).
If it makes you feel better, you made a few pedos really really rich.
I was told that if I voted for Harris there would be inflation and high gas prices, the government would be filled with pedophiles and sexual predators, and there would be war in the Middle East (WWIII even), and it would be the demise of America’s standing in the world.
So, I’m sorry. Because I voted for Harris anyways.
My bad.
All hail to the glory of the shareholder value!
Stop complaining, enjoy being part of something bigger than you. And wealthier. And happier. And…
I cut out almost everything last year. No streaming, I use Tubi for free. Cut Spotify, using Radio Garden to listen to music for free. Deleted my Amazon account, including Kindle Unlimited. I read a lot so that one was harder to ditch, but now use the library for free. Cut out almost all spending except for groceries, but no junk food, alcohol (I miss beer 😞 but $12 for a six-pack is too much) or soda. I miss that stuff but I’m old enough I grew up without online subscriptions and I can live without all that. No unneeded driving, I save my errands up and do them all in one go. It kinda sucks, not going to lie. But I can’t afford to live and still let myself get nickle-and-dimed to death.
The cost of a 2 bedroom apartment has doubled over the last decade. Groceries are up 50% and I have found that the food I buy is spoiling way before the best by date, as if stores are not properly handling their merchandise due to cut regulations.
Despite getting small yearly raises my spending power has not increased at all.
Crap is also friggin shrinking too. A bunch of packages of things I buy are now a little bit smaller than they were like 5-10 years ago.
most noticable were toothpastes, he had massive shrinkflation, and they also go through cheapflation and try to disguise it as a new products. 8.2oz are considered “old” version they have mostly 5.4 for the normal ones. sensitivity toothpaste suffered the same thing some went from 4.6 to 4.3(stannous and potassium nitrate) oz per tube, plus they use cheaper ingredients and overload it with mint oil(they use mint oil to give the taste) to mask the taste no doubt, too much chemically produce oil actual can cause allergic reaction in people.
Triple whammy: prices up, sizes down, quality down
I got a box of ice cream pops a few weeks ago.
It had three in the box.
I could swear I’ve bought the exact same kind before and it had four. Not only did the shrinkflation annoy me, but 3? Something about that rubs me the wrong way, but I can’t quite articulate it. It just seems like a very weird number to pick. Right? Am I alone in thinking this?
My mom has a box a day habit of those little Dove ice cream nuggets. A while back they went from 10 in a box to 6, and the price stayed the same. You can’t do that to an addict, they don’t take it well.
And yet for all of eternity we have had different numbers of hot dogs and hot dog buns.
same goes with bars, like gronala, fruit bars,etc. i have seen from 6-5,. the bougie ones like gomarco,etc are too expensive for a fruit bar.
Having a prime number in the box makes fights more likely since it isnt divisible. If you are sharing, somebody is going to miss out.
In a somewhat related prime number incident, we have the term “baker’s dozen”, meaning 13. This is because bakers were found to be reducing the size of loaves of bread, and the government required that they include 13 when they sold 12 to make up for the discrepancy. So shrinkflation has been going on basically forever…
Any prime number is divisible by itself though? So you can split a box of 3 amongst 3 people. Remember that 2 is also prime, and you can’t split a box of 2 or 4 between 3 people.
Anyway, I think the bigger issue is the 25% reduction from 4 in a box to 3 in a box, and we can be plenty annoyed and/or outraged at that. 😆
Shrinkflation
cheapflation as well.
Things also may be spoiling faster due to grocery stores chronically understaffing too save money (read: 🤑 📈).
A lot more spoilage happens when employees don’t have time to properly sort and manage inventory.
I was in the store about 30 minutes and these had been out prior to me getting there, and were still out when I left. Never saw an employee interact with the pile. I squeezed the Tillamook ice cream container on the corner and it was significantly melted. Kind of hoping this was for disposal and not sale.
I make about $800 more a month now than I did two years ago and I have way less money on hand today. This administration stole my raise from me and will continue to do so :(
I have found that the food I buy is spoiling way before the best by date
I’ve been noticing this too. Bags of potatoes are going soft after only a few days of purchase.
i suspect alot of them could be sitting in storage facilities for a while before actually shipped to the store as new? some of them come rotten or infested with pest(fungi)
And Children, entertainment, travel, housing, Healthcare… We are cutting back on every fucking thing
“Why aren’t people reproducing anymore!”
Even when large segments of the population straight-up tell politicians in simple and direct language, they willfully ignore what people are saying.
they know but the narrative needs to be maintained
for now
Except war.
Interesting, I’m spending less on groceries and more on alcohol.
xactly.
Oh wow. I cut back on groceries, ride shares and alcohol during the first Trump presidency too. Suffering does come in cycles.
Only just now?
The top 10% of the US account for at least half of consumer spending; this just shows that spending is slowing even for the well-off folks.
It’s the next wealth tier up from up to now, I think.
I once read that not being able to make enough money to buy food is when a revolutionary happens. It’s the final straw that people can no longer ignore. It has to happen on a national level.
The problem is that like 20% of these people blame Biden or Democrats.
I don’t necessarily think that’s a problem. A revolution wouldn’t end up with a new Obama or Clinton. Ideally it would end up destroying capitalism and saving humanity.
I’m spending my savings on alcohol!
Better spend it on ammo instead the rate that things are going.
Credit card go brrrrrr
I’ve got enough ammo to get started.
Who needs a 401k when you can down a 12 pack a day!
It’s hard to imagine a future where my 401k is worth enough to support me. In the meantime, the horrors of the world are driving me to increase my alcohol intake.
My 401k would only ever be a supplement to Social Security. Fortunately the ruling party would never even dream of abolishing that.
/s of course. They used to say Social Security was the third rail of American politics – soon it will be the third leg.
I’m lucky that I have supportive parents otherwise I’d be struggling to survive right now
its a thing for asian families, including indians,etc. but not caucasian westerners where the propaganda tells them to be independent without significant finances in thier banks. some people are well off enough they can afford to live on thier own as soon as possible, or dare i say it, in a low cost red state.
Make your own Alcohol now that it’s apparently legal to home distill. Just don’t forget to dispose of the heads and the tails.
I heard you can turn that part into degreaser?
Yeah, I don’t see why not. It’s mostly methanol
It’s the least they can do to help Dear Leader build his arch.
Here’s the design plan
Y’know I don’t dislike clowns. But this? I don’t like it.
It’s appropriate for trump’s legacy
Appropriate? Sure. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to set it on fire regardless.
Why are they cutting back on rideshares?
I would have expected the opposite, more riding together and reducing single person only rides.rideshares are expensive.
l know.
It’s more that the term ridesharing apparently changed its meaning from actually sharing rides and then splitting costs (the meaning I knew) to a synonym for privately owned taxis booked over a central platform.
Instead of Uber, they are taking the bus.
OK, ridesharing doesn’t mean sharing rides but calling privately owned quasi-taxis.
Then it makes sense!
Thanks for the explanation!Yes. In English (at least in the US), a bunch of friends (or coworkers, or whatever) taking one vehicle is called carpooling.
Yeah “rideshare” a bit of a vestigal term leftover from the early days of Uber/Lyft, when the original idea was that it was a service for someone to hitch a ride along a route the driver was already taking. Basically app-driven hitchhiking. But instead they turned into the taxi service we all know these apps for nowadays, yet the term stuck around.
the bus
The OG rideshare
Only if you live in the city
pity that!
I assume it means cutting back on rideshare as a mode of transport. Not sharing the ride with another passenger, but the concept of rideshare as a way for people to share their private car, as a work vehicle.
It means uber and lyft
So rideshare means not sharing rides, but using your car to do stuff for your employer?
But wouldn’t he at least reimburse you for the costs?I believe these companies (Uber, Lyft, etc.) coined the term ‘rideshare’ primarily to skirt the taxi laws.
You see, they aren’t technically running an unlicensed taxi business - no, no, no. When you use their app to say ‘hey, I wish to go to the icecream shop on third’, it lets all the other people with the app (and a car) know. If any of them happen to also be going to the icecream shop on third, they can let you know and the two of you can connect to share a ride there - isn’t that nice!
These are in no way unlicensed taxis… That would be highly illegal and totally unfair to other taxi businesses that have to spend ungodly amounts of money to license their vehicles. It’s just you and a stranger sharing a ride to go get some icecream…
Yes, it very much is the perversion of earlier coordinated communities that probably defined (and still earned) the name.
Here in Germany still exist “Mitfahrzentralen” which roughly translates to ride-share-centres, which allow people to offer ride-along places for specific private rides (e.g. driving from Munich to Berlin on Friday afternoon), for a share of the costs for the ride.See also: AirBnB as unlicensed hotels
Yes, if your employer is uber. You’re not an employee. You’re sharing your asset. Like Airbnb is sharing your home.
Thanks, already learned from another commenter that ridesharing is apparently the term for the business model like Uber.
Confusing term.
I think the thing l was thinking of is actually named ''car pooling".
