Americans have endured a decade’s worth of inflation during the three years Joe Biden has lived in the White House. Bloomberg’s Reade Pickert and Jennah Haque report on the cost-of-living squeeze Americans are suffering through today, writing:
After years of inflation, US consumers are shouldering a burden unlike anything seen in decades — even as the pace of price increases has slowed.
It now requires $119.27 to buy the same goods and services a family could afford with $100 before the pandemic. Since early 2020, prices have risen about as much as they had in the full 10 years preceding the health emergency.
It’s hard to find an area of a household budget that’s been spared: Groceries are up 25% since January 2020. Same with electricity. Used-car prices have climbed 35%, auto insurance 33% and rents roughly 20%.
Those figures help explain why Americans continue to register strong dissatisfaction with the economy: Consumers’ daily routines have largely returned to their pre-pandemic normal, but the cost of living has not.
And the government data reports that show easing inflation are cold comfort, because they simply indicate prices are growing at a slower pace, not that they are returning to early 2020 levels.
At the same time, housing affordability is at its worst on record, auto-loan rates have soared, and borrowing with a credit card has never been so expensive.
Action Line: Protect yourself from inflation in retirement by saving til it hurts. When you want to talk about inflation and retirement, I’m here.
