Anonymous wrote:Almost everything we actually buy has significantly outstripped inflation.
Education
Housing
Food (grocery and eating out)
Cars, Transportation, Hotels
It’s ALL gone up way faster than official CPI numbers. CPI is junk. The only things I can think of that haven’t outstripped inflation over the past 20 yrs are computers and gasoline maybe.
I make 300k now and according to CPI it should be equal to a ~186k salary in 2004. A more accurate figure imo is to look at Big Mac prices, back then a Big Mac was $2.39, and according to the McDonald’s app I can buy one for $5.59 today.
This means my $300k income is actually $126k in 2004 Big Mac dollars. This is definitely how things feel, low 100k’s back then was the benchmark for being comfortable and now it’s more like 300. 1M you could start thinking about retiring back then but now you need ~3M.
CPI is a lie.
Look at you whining about how tough it is to make it when earning $300,000...
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