I called it out specifically to avoid the mistake, but I think you skipped the footnote. You're misreading the chart. The numbers there are already corrected for CPI. An upwards slope represents higher wealth, independent of inflation. Lol, indeed. This is sort of what I was complaining about. Please, please try to get stuff right before arguing about it on the internet. Economic statistics are extremely well-tabluated and easy to find.

Now compare inflation adjusted income with the cost to rent a one bedroom apartment. That’s been trending down since the mid 80s. As in housing is getting more expensive relatively

> Now compare inflation adjusted income with the cost to rent a one bedroom apartment

And now we're doing goalpost motion. This is how this always goes. Indeed, some things are more expensive and some things are less expensive. And that can change across regions and subeconomies, and even demographically to the extent that different groups spend in different ways. And this is interesting and important.

But it's absolutely not about "inflation" or "wages" and if you come back from an incorrectly-stated argument about inflation/affordability/whatever by saying "OK fine but this is actually about housing policy", you just look silly.

The fact that housing is expensive in some markets isn't a refutation that people are making more money, it just isn't.

EDIT:

But in fact FRED is great, so I generated your chart for you showing the ratio of the CPI urban rent metric to nominal (not "real" this time) hourly earnings: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qtNi

And.. you're kinda wrong here too. It's true that the chart is going upwards, but only by about 8-9% since 2006 (the earliest date where we have both data points). And very notably:

1. Most of the growth was from 2011-2018 or so, not a recent phenomenon at all

2. There was a huge dip during the pandemic (because of assistance programs, it's the same effect I mentioned upthread) that we've only just recovered from in the last few months. The recent rapid rise of "rent costs as a fraction of income" is just taking back all the boon people got earlier.

3. It's actually levelled off since 2023.

Again, there's data to this stuff, and it doesn't support your position.

What on earth is "perceived inflation"? That's not a thing. You're literally making up a fake statistic because the real one doesn't support your incorrect-but-strongly-held intuition!

It's inflation as perceived by the average person, basically increases in daily expenditure on required goods and services like food, gas, utilities, rent or mortgage. Have you even been reading what I wrote or are you just spouting shit you copy pasted from somewhere else?

> are you just spouting shit you copy pasted from somewhere else?

I'm literally linking to FRED charts trying to have a numerate discussion about this stuff...

Can you cite some research or measurements or anything about this "perceived inflation" metric you're talking about? Like, where are the numbers? I'm pretty sure you just made it up, no?

I'm not linking to numbers lol. I already know how much more I'm paying for groceries. I talked about perceived inflation from the beginning and you are just now talking about it? You haven't responded to anything I wrote. I am pretty sure you just read the word inflation and started some pre-written rant. Either that or you are severely lacking in reading comprehension.

Just linking a bunch of numbers does not make an argument. You have to actually talk and respond to the actual topic being discussed.

So... when you say "perceived inflation", you're really just saying that you, personally, perceive inflation. And therefore I can't disprove that with numbers, because numbers don't change your perception. Well, touche. I can't beat that logic.

But in the real world, you do admit that current inflation as traditionally understood by centuries of economics is a little under 3% right now, right?

Perceived by me and by pretty much everyone except delusional people like you who believe the official numbers. Keep your head in the sand, why would I care.

And absolutely not lol, the numbers are cooked up, as I said before. You are really really bad at reading comprehension.

Since you cite "pretty much everyone" with the same rigor you do your inflation numbers, I think I'm comfortable with my characterization of "perceived inflation" as your own personal perception.

To wit: you're just simply wrong here, and instead of arguing from a rational basis you're hiding behind your philosophical right to be wrong about whatever you want. And that's very distressing to see on a site like HN.

You can be comfortable in your delusion, that’s fine with me. I’m not writing a thesis when it’s so obvious that inflation is much higher than what is officially reported.