This is definitely true. There was an econtalk episode with economist Mark Warshawsky. He had looked at Bureau of Labor statistics and identified that most gains in compensation for low income jobs has been absorbed by rising health care costs: http://www.econtalk.org/mark-warshawsky-on-compensation-heal...

>>Healthcare costs have risen faster than inflation, eating into take-home pay.

Who's fault it is? The government has the power to change all that. You cannot pay your rent with a copy of your health insurance bill. I wonder if people still pay way more out of pockets expenses for healthcare now, despite having super-expensive insurance.

It wouldn't surprise me if an aging and extremely unhealthy population was a contributing factor. We have a 42% prevalence of obesity among adults (1), median age grew in the new millennium (2).

And ironically, smokers die so fast that they cost less money than non smokers to support in the healthcare system, so the decline in tobacco usage has probably contributed to rising insurance costs.

I guess my point is that there are tangible changes to our society that contribute to skyrocketing healthcare costs.

(1) https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

(2) https://www.statista.com/statistics/241494/median-age-of-the...

Insurance almost surely contributed to increased costs. Hospitals inflate costs because they want to charge more money to the insurance providers, and they get away with it.

That is true.

Part of that is also because they need to cover costs of the people who don't pay and also pay for all the special billing people and lawyers required to deal with insurance and people who don't pay.

I'm just saying that total compensation is a better comparison of employee compensation over time.

It would also depend on the tax structure to support healthcare as to whether that helps the total comp.

Put another way... Inflation is a different rate for every person.

For a lot of lower-middle class people in cities, inflation has been much higher than the reported rate. Healthcare, tuition, rent...