Signs that inflation pressures in the United States are steadily easing emerged Friday in reports that consumer prices rose in June at their slowest pace in more than two years and that wage growth cooled last quarter.

  • Cleverdawny@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The point of the interest rate hikes was to take money out of circulation to reduce inflation. A side effect of that is cooling wage increases.

    Ideally, we would handle inflation by raising taxes. But good luck passing that without a Senate that has a supermajority of non-Republicans

      • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No. While that may seem like the effect, he’s been very keen to position himself as actually trying to keep runaway inflation from punishing the lower class. It devalues capital, but do you think the wealthy are affected by the cost of groceries?

        The point of tempering wage growth is to temper costs of important consumables and purchases: food, housing, and transportation.

        The prices of goods rises with the available cash of people that actually spend their paychecks. Investment is not how most people use their money–they buy food, pay rent, purchase gas, etc. If there is more money available from wage workers that spend most of their money on consumables and basic living expenses, the prices all of those things go up.

        Grocery stores, gas stations, and most large corporations (which includes farms) are staged and staffed by people that “spend” the majority of their money. Which means when the cost of stuff goes up, you have to pay them more so they can continue to be able to get these basic consumables. And that means paying them more, so the cost of bringing food to your grocery store and fuel to your gas station goes up. So you need more money from your job to shoulder that burden… but, then, so do they. So you’re paid more, and they’re paid more, which costs more, and it doesn’t end without economic intervention. And that’s what inflation is. There are reasonable arguments for keeping wages AND COSTS LOW, but they involve wage workers voting at a rate higher that 25%, because they involve adjudication of our tax targets that aren’t completely in favor of the very wealthy.