Yeah, housing and automobiles, which are the two biggest purchases for the average household, really show how bad inflation is. 40 or 50 years ago a young couple straight out of high school with no college degrees, and possibly only a single full-time income, could save up to buy a house and a decent car within 6 months to a year. That isn’t possible nowadays for most people.
Of course housing is mostly excluded from inflation statistics, which is a big reason using those statistics doesn’t tell the whole picture.
I moved from Seattle to rural, south central KY 7 years ago. Because labor prices are lower here, a lot of labor intensive stuff is a lot cheaper, but I wondered what it meant for car purchases. Naturally one thing it means is that people drive a lot more beaters around here, but there is another outgrowth of this:
Here, rebuilding salvage autos is a huge business. In fact, when I bought my Silverado Z71 4x4 I got a salvage vehicle. The funny part was that when I went to the Boieng Credit Union to get my loan, they said they don’t loan on salvage titles. So I went to my local bank that carries my mortgage and asked if they did. My loan officer said, “We better. My truck has a salvage title.”
Of course housing is mostly excluded from inflation statistics, which is a big reason using those statistics doesn’t tell the whole picture.