“Wage growth has caught up with inflation on average. But wage gains haven’t been uniform: The lowest-paid workers saw some of the biggest gains, particularly in the leisure and hospitality sectors, but other industries, from advertising to chemical manufacturing, saw their wages decline relative to inflation.”
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“Even if workers received raises that outpaced inflation, that doesn’t help with sticker shock. Research has shown that consumers have an internalized “reference price” — a conception of what constitutes a fair price for a good they routinely purchase. If that imagined price doesn’t match up with reality, consumers feel short-changed.”
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“Consumers also often misunderstand how inflation works. The important thing to know is that it only goes one way: When inflation decreases, that just means that prices are increasing less quickly, not that they are going down. (That can happen, though rarely.)
Prices going down, a phenomenon known as deflation, would be a potentially worrying signal about the health of the economy. If consumers pay less for a good, that can translate to less money to pay the workers who produce and distribute it, leading to less consumer spending overall and slower economic growth.”
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“people are staying unemployed for longer: 1.6 million Americans were unemployed for a period of at least 27 weeks in October, compared to just 1.3 million the same month last year.”
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“After a brief spike in savings rates during the pandemic due to a series of stimulus checks, Americans are now saving less than they were pre-pandemic. This creates a cycle where Americans have less money, so they borrow more. Because interest rates have been high, borrowing has become more expensive, leaving them with even less money.”
https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/383397/economy-inflation-2024-election-democrats-trump