Grocery prices, credit card debt, and your 401K (Two Indicators)

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2024

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What's going on with consumers? This is one of the trickiest puzzles of this weird economic moment we're in. We've covered a version of this before under the term "vibecession," but it's safe to say, the struggle is in fact real. It is not just in our heads. Sure, sure, some data is looking great. But not all of it.

What's interesting, is exactly why the bad feels so much worse than the good feels good. Today on the show, we look into a few theories on why feelings are just not matching up with data. We'll break down some numbers and how to think about them. Then we look at grocery prices in particular, and an effort to combat unfair pricing using a mostly forgotten 1930's law. Will it actually help?

Today's episode is adapted from episodes for Planet Money's daily show, The Indicator. Subscribe here.

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Transcript

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0:21.0	Adrian, I don't know how often you frequent your local supermarket,
0:27.0	but grocery prices are not okay right now.
0:31.0	It's like over six bucks for a family-sized box of Cheesitz which you know that's my
0:35.5	personal barometer for inflation. Oh my gosh that is a barometer of inflation that I
0:39.6	understand. Truthfully I'm a cheese nips person more than a cheese its person. Yeah. I think they just, they
0:46.6	taste less healthy. Yeah, though, that's important. The struggle is real though. Grocery prices have gone up 25% since January 2020,
0:55.4	and that's outpaced the increase in inflation overall.
0:58.1	And grocery prices hold a kind of special place
1:00.5	in our economics brains.
1:02.4	We feel the pain of inflation every single time
1:05.3	we pay those new higher prices week in, week out and pretty much everyone shops.
1:10.4	Yeah and just like contrast that with some of the positive data points right now.
1:15.6	Like rising wages.
1:17.3	If you get a cost of living pay adjustment, maybe it feels great when you first hear about
1:20.9	it, but then it gets direct deposited in your bank account
1:24.4	and you kind of stop feeling it week in and week out.
1:27.3	But also, it is tough out there, and if it feels that way, it kind of just is that way.
	...

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