When I was a kid, about 6 to 7 years old, my Dad's first job out of University (Masters) he made around $45k USD per year and we lived in Dallas Texas, which at the time was about average middle income
Back then, CiCi's pizza buffet was only $2.99 for adults, our family 2 bedroom apartment of 900 sq ft was $400 per month rent, and a family of four at McDonalds (2 adults, 2 kids meals) went for around $10 total....
Nowadays CiCi's buffet ends up being $10 per adult, that exact same 2 bedroom apartment of 900 sq ft is now going for $1200 and doesn't include water, electric, etc and an adult McDonalds meal costs darn near $10 per person...
Just intuitively it feels like in the last three decades the US dollar has only roughly retained about 1/3 of its purchasing power...
These days you'd have to be making at least $120k to be equal to the $45k that someone made back in 1992... a "six figure salary" is no longer the sign of a "high earner" and being a "millionaire" really only means you have $300k in the bank... hardly enough to last you three years as opposed to "a lifetime of safety and security" to quote Indecent Proposal (90s movie about rich billionaire guy buying one night with someone's wife)
About a decade ago I was making $45k and nowadays I'm making about twice the nominal amount but I definitely feel like my living standards haven't changed at all, in some ways its gotten worse.
Back in late 2016/early 2017 (even before the trade war and tech wars) the DJI Mavic Pro high end went for $999. Now the Mavic version 3 Pro is $2199 and tops out at a ridiculous $4999.
Back in 2014 I got a then state of the art top of the line flagship Nvidia GTX980 gpu for $599 at Fry's electronics.... Now even two years after the RTX3000 series debuted I still cannot find any inventory at MSRP and last year to get a RTX3090 had to shell out $3500.... and it wasn't at Fry's because Fry's had just went belly-up
A decade ago in our town a brand new KIA Rio sedan was going for $8000, these days you'd have to pay $21000 to get the same...
Our first family home that my parents bought back in 1994 was for $120,000, that same home is now valued at $480,000 even though it has aged nearly 3 decades...
I think this definitely comports with the figures published at Shadowstats and Chapwoods in terms of real-life inflation numbers rather than the rigged CPI index just like the rigged US stock market and the rigged unemployment figures....
US Federal minimum wage hasn't changed since the $7.25/hr first implemented back in 2009. Real inflation in the US last year was at LEAST 15% but the average salary wage increase was less than <4%... (I myself only got 1%)
