It’s now good for the economy, right?
And for our investments, right?
And for our grocery bills, right?
When did that change?
Where’s the outrage now?
I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now.
You?
21 replies (most recent on top)
@b3 or do math
@nh
I filled my truck 3 days ago for 185 dollars. I filled it in sep 2024 for 101 dollars. Thats the inflation i care about. For context i am in texas.
Rising inflation raises borrowing costs and drives up prices for everything from gas to groceries. Rising inflation typically drives down demand for products and accelerates layoffs.
Average annual year-over-year (YOY) and approximate total/cumulative figures for the requested U.S. presidential terms are outlined below:
George W. Bush (2001–2009)
• Average Annual YOY Rate: ~2.48% per year
• Cumulative Price Increase: ~20.7% total across both terms (roughly 10.3% for the first 48 months)
• Context: Marked by two recessions (2001 and the start of the Great Recession in 2007).
Barack Obama (2009–2017)
• Average Annual YOY Rate: ~1.46% per year (Term 1 averaged ~9.38% cumulative; Term 2 added ~4.94% cumulative)
• Cumulative Price Increase: ~14.5% total across both terms
• Context: Began during the depth of the Great Recession, seeing a prolonged stretch of low inflation.
Donald Trump (2017–2021)
• Average Annual YOY Rate: ~2.46% per year
• Cumulative Price Increase: ~8.00% total over the 4-year term
• Context: Inflation remained stable and low until economic disruptions and pandemic-related stimulus measures occurred in 2020.
Joe Biden (2021–2025)
• Average Annual YOY Rate: ~4.95% per year
• Cumulative Price Increase: ~21.20% total over the 4-year term
• Context: Experienced a sharp post-pandemic surge, with YOY inflation peaking at a four-decade high of 9.1% in mid-2022 before cooling down to around 3% by late 2024 / early 2025.
Donald Trump (2025–present)
• Average Annual / Cumulative Rate: Data is ongoing and incomplete for this current term.
@pz
Are you honestly asking if I am happier at 2.1% inflation instead of 21.5% inflation?
Uh, yes!
@nh - I’m sure all of the families struggling with increased prices for gas, food, and other essentials really care about your “research”.
So I guess this means you’re happy and in favor of the current sticky inflation rate?
Using CPI-U (Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers), the standard measure of consumer inflation, here’s the inflation picture by presidential term since George W. Bush. The BLS annual-average CPI data are the basis for the calculations.
President Approx. cumulative inflation during term*
Avg. annual inflation
George W. Bush
2001–2009
~20.7%
Barack Obama
2009–2017
~14.6%
Donald Trump
2017–2021
~7.7%
Joe Biden
2021–2025
~21.5%
Donald Trump
2025–present
~2.1%
If you could all just do just the minimum amount of research before looking d-mb, that would be great.
Feel free to fact check.
$6 diesel and 50% tariffs. Make better choices.
@dt - phew, now we’re finally great again. We did it!!
@dp - to clarify, I did not miss your point as you did not make them in your initial post. You spotlighted minimum wage increases as your prime argument. You stated “A big reason for the price spikes was the minimum wage increases”. I was not able to divine your other thoughts.
And, why is it you think other people are drinking political koolaid but not you?
Your follow up points 2 and 3 are the current political talking points and executed in extreme fashion. The US has been the beneficiary of global policies for years but unfortunately just not the working class.
Your follow up point 1 sounds great but who pays for this? DOGE, the historically low tax base, cutting more social programs? Do we really have the fortitude to take this on?
Your follow up point 4 gets at the heart of my point. Far easier said than done but I’m in for some intelligently implemented policies.
Back to the increased minimum wage point - maybe prices were artificially suppressed with lower wages all along and with appropriate wage increases the prices might be where they should have been all along and not subsidized by previous lower wages.
I recognize that small businesses are impacted the most here and the current corporate franchisee model is at play here too (corporate franchiser doing ok while small businesses franchisee pays the price).
We might be largely in agreement but your lead argument hit a nerve.
All the best.
What’s everybody worried about the great leader is giving us all $5K checks problem solved
“ pointing to minimum wage increases as the driver is misguided at best and a common storyline used to keep wages down. Mr. John Q Public getting a decent minimum wage bump was not the culprit.”
You missed the point. I’m all for wages increasing across the board; however, margins are margins and every business has a number they need to make and it ain’t 0 profit. I agree margins are as high as ever for some business, not all. I’m just saying that min wage increase may have helped people at that level temporarily, then hurt everyone else. All you have to do is go to McDs or any restaurant for that matter and order anything to see that. Much fewer workers, lower quality everything and prices nearly doubled. As a result, we go out less and less. Nobody blamed solely min wage increases, but it definitely was a big contributor. Not to mention the tariffs, wall st, the banks, the govt (all admins and both sides of the aisle). I blame everyone.
So what’s the fix?
- Training, education, apprenticeships to get min wage workers out of min wage jobs so they can support themselves. Thats how you improve their lives.
- Renegotiate the trade deals to make it better for our side. I don’t really care about other govt. they do what’s best for them.
- Getting more jobs back in this country, tax the he-l out of offshoring and all that. Stop importing labor that’s has taken the jobs in construction and the like, stop the visa’s. All of that is hurting everyone from min wage workers to professionals.
- Reigning in companies, wall st and the banks, change the rules so that employees and workers are the biggest share holders and have the biggest say.
Many many other things, but just because I said min wage contributed to the inflation doesn’t mean I solely blamed it. People need to stop drinking the political koolaid, neither side has all the right answers and neither side is better than the other.
Golden age.
@d2 - quality post.
It’s similar to blaming all of the consumers for the great financial / subprime loan meltdown and not Wall Street and the Bankers.
Or blaming us end users for Medicare and/or Medicaid fraud when the big complex fraud operations by large organizations (including hospitals, doctors, and insurance middlemen) dwarf any end user fraud. Many get pardoned or cut some sweet deal to add insult to injury.
We do like to blame each other, don’t we.
@ca - pointing to minimum wage increases as the driver is misguided at best and a common storyline used to keep wages down. Mr. John Q Public getting a decent minimum wage bump was not the culprit.
Follow the money as they say. The one high level metric to look at is growth in corporate profits. It’s why Wall Street rocks and Main Street not so much.
From 2000 through 2018, corporate profits have increased by 107% (after inflation) compared to only a 28% rise in employee compensation. That doesn’t even take the Covid era into account.
Another view that is telling:
From 1950 to 2010, corporate profits as a share of GDP typically remained below 10%. However, by early 2026, corporate profits reached 12.4% of GDP, marking a significant increase.
Of course some of this can be attributed to productivity gains from automation and the very low interest phase we recently exited, but keeping salaries depressed (and ramping layoffs) vs these gains is also a major contributor.
It’s really the story of the greatest transfer of wealth all while the majority of us scramble for the crumbs. Some of us gained in this if we were lucky enough to have a 401k or invested in stocks through other ways but many were not offered that luxury.
The amount high level data out there showing this major shift is absolutely astonishing but we keep blaming each other instead 😖.
@c4 - yes, things are weird.
All executives care about is everything going up and to the right on the metrics chart, while expenses go down. So in that sense, prices are up, revenue is up, stocks are up, so they like it at the top. It just stinks for the rest of us as wages have gone sideways, everything costs way more, layoffs are high, hiring is down, work force participation at all time low.
The gov’t won’t say it, but we’ve had stagflation (stagnant wages, high inflation) for a while now. That started before Trump came in, but his policies aren’t helping. A big reason for the price spikes was the minimum wage increases, it didn’t help those at the bottom for very long and now they are worse off, meanwhile for the rest of us salary slobs, it hurt us the most as our wages didn’t increase, so now most of us are buying less as we have less disposable income. It helped the hourly workers and unions the most, but now they are getting cut and cut more, just like the rest of us. Have to keep those expenses down and the profit margins increasing. Everything always has to go up.
@b3 weird
@ar - well isn’t that special (and total BS). You must have come straight from the convention. Amazing how you’ll go out of your way to cover up.
Maybe we all should have done that in 2022 and imagined it away.
My spending is up 2% from last year, ytd. We should all track our personal inflation.