Make people more dependent and increasing costs.
Increasing costs for 20+ years.
It seems governments around the world want to make more people dependent on them. Think about who this would benefit. Who wants control? Why?
2022-0810. US government destroying baby formula by the ton. Why?
Expenses rise an average $961 per month, while incomes remain flat. https://sciencenews22.substack.com/p/us-expenses-up-an-average-of-961month
Taxes go up, and so do social programs. Most social programs in the US don’t have job training, so they are not about lifting people up out of poverty, they are about making a dependent class. In some cases we now have 3 generations of the same family who have never worked and only been on welfare. People have babies just to get more cash because that’s how the US welfare system works.
Total compensation has barely kept up with inflation since 2000. But total compensation incudes pay, medical insurance, life insurance, vacation and sick pay, and other perks. The pay portion has NOT kept up with expenses for over 20 years.
In 2021 Biden passed a free money bill to give people an extra $600 per week for unemployment. But congress didn’t have the money. So in 2022 Biden passed a mega spending bill to increase taxes so people will have to pay back that money, with interest.
People refused to work in 2021 for less wages, this forced wages up, and to pay for the increased wages, companies had to raise the price of their goods. So now people get more money (until Biden passed the mega tax bill) but have no more “buying power” than before. It was a net loss situation for the consumer and worker after the mega tax bill. The important number is not dollars in your paycheck, but buying power. More dollars in your paycheck doesn’t matter when prices of goods and services just increase to cover higher wages. Our prepared food has gone up about 15-25% for many items. This has pushed us to eat more produce, which is better for our health.
Disposable income is an estimate which tries to look at average pay vs average expenses. So it’s net pay after taxes minus typical expenses.
Disposable income chart (and downloadable data) from OECD. This is the percentage change for Q1 of 2022. Down 1.8% for USA. When we uncheck “Latest data available” we can enter a date range and we’ll get a line graph for each country.
From FRED, a tool of the US Federal Reserve (which is not a gov’t agency but is fully funded by the gov’t) has a line graph for “Real Disposable Personal Income: Per capita”. We can adjust the slider at the bottom of the graph to adjust the date range. In March 2021 the value was $57,881. In August 2022 it’s $45,292. A decrease of 21%! Now can you understand why things are so tough? (Real income does not count taxes.)
Also, house prices in the US have increased much more than income since 1960. See line graph here. Rents have also increased a lot in the past 2 years. But if you buy a house with a fixed mortgage, your payment changes very little. The part of your payment that might change is what goes into escrow, which has to do with property taxes or house insurance. For Canada, a graph of how much income it takes to buy a house. In 1980 it took 3x average yearly income. In 2020 it’s over 7x the yearly income. The financial pressure keeps mounting.
There are more factors that keep increasing expenses like:
Inflation. See US Monthly inflation since 2021. US yearly inflation rates. (Has link to historical inflation rates.) US grocery/food prices since 2000.
Cost of education. US News college costs over 20 years, graph.
Cost of energy (gasoline, and energy to heat the home). Yearly US energy prices since 2000. In 2022 US energy prices are up 24%!
Medical costs keep going up. I’m paying more and more of the medical insurance premiums. Compare medical costs to average income over time, graph.