American citizens are struggling under an economic burden of high prices unlike anything in decades, even though the pace of inflation is slowing. Despite the moves taken by the White House to rein in inflation, prices continue to rise and have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Groceries and electricity bills are up by 25 percent since Jan. 2020, used car prices are up by 35 percent, auto insurance by 33 percent, and rents by 20 percent. It takes $119 to buy what $100 could before 2020, virtually across the board of goods and services. Prices have risen more since 2020 than they had throughout the entire 2010s.
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About 44 percent of middle-class Americans reported feeling stressed about the economy in Oct. 2023, up from 40 percent in June and 39 percent in March. As Bloomberg reports, the pay raises that have occurred for many Americans since 2020 have been canceled out by inflation.
Bloomberg wrote a round-up of the different goods and services that have seen markups since the pandemic. Coffee prices have increased 23 percent since 2020. Beef has gone up from $3.98 a pound on average in 2020 to $5.23 today. Fruit and vegetables are up 14 percent higher on average. An average four-person household is spending 32 percent more a week on groceries than they were three years ago, according to a Census Bureau Survey.
Beyond food, mortgage rates are at a 23-year high and home values have increased 42 percent since 2020.
The average monthly child care payments have increased by 32 percent since 2019, according to Bank of America data.
Furthermore, electricity bills have risen 25 percent and natural gas 29 percent since Jan. 2020. California and Maine have been hit the hardest by electricity prices from 2019 to 2023, with increases of 51 percent and 42 percent respectively. Both states have Democratic governors who have implemented climate policies and engage in record spending.
A new poll from Morning Consult shows that “Economy” is the top issue for 4 in 10 swing-state voters going into the 2024 election.
If costs do not fall in time, this could spell doom for Joe Biden’s re-election chances, which he seems to be aware of. Just this week, Biden held a press conference on supply chain issues and claimed that inflation has been tackled. The only reason costs remain high, Biden asserted without evidence, is because of corporate “price-gouging.”
Watch Patrick Bet-David discuss the possibility of a “reverse market crash” caused by pandemic policies below, or read a text version of the article here.
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