One of the talking points I hear repeated by one side of the debate is: although wealth inequality is high, even the people at the bottom can afford more than ever.
I was doing some shopping the other day and I got thinking about how this could potentially be false. Similar to how salaries have gone up slower than the rate of inflation, I feel like with many products the quality has decreases substantially to prevent increasing prices. I don't believe this sort of thing is factored into studies on spending power, wealth inequality or inflation.
It is more obvious when you look back decades and notice that household items that used to be made out of solid, more expensive materials like metal or wood, are now made out of flimsy plastic that will probably need replacing in a few months. I couldn't find any information about which specific products make up the consumer price index beyond broad categories but I think many products if you compare items made from the same material and quality there would be a difference of 2x or more.
The poor can afford more gadgets, information, toys, appliances, etc than ever before. What they can't afford is housing, tuition, and health care, the three things whose cost has exploded since the late 1990s. In larger cities and especially coastal ones housing is the worst, while for the interior its education and health care.
I'm not disagreeing that housing, tuition and health care costs have exploded. What I am suspicious about is whether people can afford more of those other things than ever before. At first glance it appears so, but it also seems to me like people replace those things far quicker than ever before also.
If I have to replace appliances after 5 or 10 years where it used to last 30+ yrs, does it really matter if it's half the cost? Not to mention the repairability factor. It used to be that many items could be repaired but now we buy cheap disposable items and replace them when they inevitably fail.
It's hard to compare something like this but this is my gut feeling and I'm curious to hear what other people think.
I was doing some shopping the other day and I got thinking about how this could potentially be false. Similar to how salaries have gone up slower than the rate of inflation, I feel like with many products the quality has decreases substantially to prevent increasing prices. I don't believe this sort of thing is factored into studies on spending power, wealth inequality or inflation.
It is more obvious when you look back decades and notice that household items that used to be made out of solid, more expensive materials like metal or wood, are now made out of flimsy plastic that will probably need replacing in a few months. I couldn't find any information about which specific products make up the consumer price index beyond broad categories but I think many products if you compare items made from the same material and quality there would be a difference of 2x or more.