On average, pay has risen faster than prices in recent years.

Fuck the average. Incomes vary far, far too much for the average to mean much of anything.

Everyone, from small business owners, to the self employed and independent contractors, to hourly wage earners who have not seen their income increase at a rate that is at least equal to the rate of inflation, every year, have had a pay cut. I can't say how many of these people there are, but I would estimate they number in the millions.

I'm just tired of everyone asking for my money. Rent/mortgage: insane. Groceries: insane. Transportation: insane. Phone/internet: insane. I think people realized they can just charge whatever they want and get away with it so thats whats happened, everyone is squeezing every last penny out of everyone. If everyone starts doing that then theres not much left over and yeah, people feel like shit. They did everything right and its just not enough. Thats the world now.

Just bad metrics all round.

Averages are a terrible, terrible way of looking at this for many reasons.

The obvious one being if food and rent take 80% of your wage, and food and rent are inflated by 20% , it’s going to hurt a lot more than If food and rent take 20% of your wage.

Here's my take on the reality versus the perception.

I brought a good used car back in 2008. It was about twenty years old and it cost me $3,500.00 It was a great deal.

A quick look at the car ads today shows me that a twenty year old car now costs about $7,000.00

There's a charity dinner I used to attend. The first time I got tickets they were $125.00 and the event was held in a Manhattan luxury hotel. Same event this year is $225.00 and it's being held out in Queens.

$1,000.00 a month for rent used to be considered extravagant; now it's the norm.

Even if people have enough to get by, they no longer feel like they are doing well. Poverty is a mind set. Dick Gregory had the line that his parents would tell him that they weren't poor, they were just broke. If you think of yourself as 'broke' it means you expect things to get better. If you're poor, you're going to stay poor.