This thought came to me as I was food shopping. So I know there are things that increase the price of certain items (beer, cigarettes, sugar tax – UK) but they also increase with inflation each year like other foods such as bread.
Apparently, the average inflation raise over the last 10 years in the US is 2.37% as of July 2023. So if it is the same in another 10-years, over the space of 20 years inflation would be 4.74%, if we say inflation is the same? And so on and so on. If it continues wouldn’t prices, for say, bread just end up getting higher and higher and be like $10-15+? And as wages don’t rise with inflation the same way foods do fewer and fewer people each decade could afford it?
Now this is just random thoughts I had when shopping and I am not making any comments on any politics. All I wanted to know is, is my thinking true that prices will just go up and up indefinitely decade-on-decade, why or why not? And I am an idiot so imagine I am 5.
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Edit: Went to sleep and woke up to about 300 notifications, thanks for your explanation to a Neanderthal like myself.
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In: 4366
Aside from what others have said, there is something massive OP is missing.
Inflation is really not that easy to measure. There isn’t one good way to measure it. This flared up in economics debates very big these last 12 months.
Inflation is hard to measure because it’s not a uniform phenomenon. Over the last 20 years, for example, flat screen tvs dropped in price significantly, while medical and tuition costs soared.
This means that not every person experiences inflation the same way. If you were relatively young, healthy, didn’t go to college, and didn’t live in certain metro areas where rent went up quickly, the last decade or two probably felt like almost no inflation occured, because the categories I just listed account for a large percentage of the inflation basket, and an individual like that just wasn’t impacted.
My point is that inflation and it’s impact on society is very complex.
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