My wages are up since Biden started. My rent, my biggest expense, has held the same. NW up a lot from stock market gains.

There seems to be a lot of inflation with food ,restaurants and domestic work, but isn't lower wage people getting higher wages a good thing?

I’m skeptical about the vibes based methods of evaluating the economy, I think the economy really is better for the lowest income workers, but forget stock market gains. Also, rents remaining flat might be a Bay Area specific phenomena. Or even SF specific? Don’t know where you live.

Their wages did not rise anywhere near commensurate with the increased costs of those goods and services - the same goods and services that those people would be buying

America wide looks at worse flat: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q (ignoring covid years which distort this)

Food might be up 30% in biden's term for all I know. And maybe wages are only up 20%. But as long as rent is 0% and asset growth kept track with inflation (it's blown past it), you are still ahead.

I suspect this is just standard human loss aversion at work. I feel this even from my own wife who looks at our economic position worse than me even though it is the same numbers. What's worsened becomes more important than what's improved, even if rationally, it nets out even.

My rent was up 30% and it was my largest expense. DoJ has been dragging its heels on punishing the companies that were a part of this gouging-via-algorithmic-price-fixing-and-warehousing, and now that Trump is going to be in office, those lawsuits are likely dead in the water. Very much a "Thanks for nothing, Joe," situation.

In gaslighting, the perpetrator insists on denying the victim's perception of reality, while actually controlling the facet of reality that he denies is altered. In this case, Democrats control the means to alter the economy via leaning on Congress, the Treasury, and the Fed. They manufactured an environment where earners would lose out to the concerns of asset holders (the "soft-landing," rather than a swift and severe FFR rate hike and tightening of Treasury holdings that would have squelched inflation), but insist on telling earners that everything is okay, because the metrics that matter to asset holders are doing well. In carrying water for this line of argument, you're participating in their gaslighting. People aren't doing well, full stop.

A fast rate hike might have caused massive unemployment which would be much worse.

A fast hike would have caused pain, but the money printing that we did anyway would have helped mitigate that. Instead, it just went to propping up asset prices. Bank Bailout 2.0; we didn't learn our lesson, and the incumbent party was yet again ousted.

I'd like to get out of here but can't move because of mortgage rates, among other reasons. I'd like to change jobs but tech layoffs have flooded the job market. It's an anxious time. My 401k is doing great though.

I don't blame Biden for all this. There was absolutely no choice but to pour enough stimulus into the economy to cause massive inflation in order to prevent a revolution during COVID. But if I'm feeling the hangover I'm sure the real working class is staggering.

I likely don’t count towards unemployment statistics. I don’t qualify for unemployment since I was a contractor before.

In my current job search, I’ve sent out more applications and had more interviews than the rest of my career. Granted, I found jobs more through connections than cold applying in the past. I’ve been tapping connections in this search too, though. It’s rough out there. I’ve contemplated taking an exit from tech and picking up a trade.

It sure feels surreal to me when I see reports of a strong economy.