Families living in the United States are feeling the pinch of inflation. They are now spending $709 per month more than they were just two years ago.
“High inflation of the past 2+ years has done lots of economic damage,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
To be sure, the high inflation of the past 2+ years has done lots of economic damage. Due to the high inflation, the typical household spent $202 more in a July than they did a year ago to buy the same goods and services. And they spent $709 more than they did 2 years ago.
— Mark Zandi (@Markzandi) August 10, 2023
Even though prices have soared, real earnings (wages), which adjust for inflation, are stuck at late 2019 levels. “Real earnings remain below what they would have been if not for the pandemic and the Russian war, which is weighing on the collective psyche,” Zandi told CNN in an email on Friday.
Most families are having to cut back as prices have surged. Most of that increase in spending is driven by housing costs, which have surged, Zandi told CNN in an email on Friday. He added that families are also spending more at the grocery store; on buying, maintaining, and insuring vehicles and on recreational services like cable.
Consumer prices increased by a cooler-than-expected 3.2% in July compared with the year before, according to a government report released Wednesday. Even though that was slightly higher than the annual inflation rate in June, most of the impact was driven by calendar effects.
“In sum, the report was encouraging,” Bank of America economists wrote in a note to clients on Thursday, adding they “wouldn’t be surprised to see another soft” inflation reading in August.
Although month-over-month inflation readings are “still likely to be bumpy,” Bank of America economists said they “believe that the current disinflation is not a ‘head fake.’” –CNN Business
Zandi calculates that the typical household spent $202 more this July than they did a year ago to buy the same goods and services. But that pales in comparison to the peak of $536 for this year-over-year metric, a record hit back in June 2022, when gas prices spiked above $5 a gallon for the first time in history.
Article cross-posted from SHTF Plan.
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
