Ms Ellis works full-time as a nurse’s assistant and has a second part-time job.

But she needs to economise. She has switched stores, cut out brand-name items like Dove soap and Stroehmann bread, and all but said goodbye to her favourite Chick-fil-A sandwich.

Still, Ms Ellis has sometimes turned to risky payday loans (short-term borrowing with high interest rates) as she grapples with grocery prices that have surged 25% since Mr Biden entered office in January 2021.

“Prior to inflation,” she says, “I didn’t have any debt, I didn’t have any credit cards, never applied for like a payday loan or any of those things. But since inflation, I needed to do all those things…I’ve had to downgrade my life completely.”

The leap in grocery prices has outpaced the historic 20% rise in living costs that followed the pandemic, squeezing households around the country and fuelling widespread economic and political discontent.

  • Riskable@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    Unless the president does something monumentally stupid (like telling people not to wear masks during a pandemic) the president has little impact on the economy (or oil prices). Why do people keep talking about the president like he’s got a great big series of valves that controls the economy? It’s ridiculous!

    Any decision the president makes that will impact the economy is most likely to have an impact ten years later. Sometimes an impact can be felt sooner than that but it’s usually not a good thing for the economy… Like starting a war or closing the borders.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yeah they also say it started when he took office but it definitely started during the pandemic when someone else was president. I don’t understand why it’s always framed like that. This inflation is a direct result of the pandemic response. But somehow they think the guy who caused it could fix it? Insane

    • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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      4 months ago

      not really. pushing the fed to drop interest rates for no reason so that when an emergency like a pandemic happens they are at zero and can’t be dropped a bit can have an impact.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Because it’s easy to blame the president who simultaneously is ineffective in controlling the difficulties in your daily life while also being the cause of those same difficulties.

    • 🔰Hurling⚜️Durling🔱@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Didn’t you hear? The supreme court said the president is basically a king now /jk

      No but real talk, you are right. People put way more importance on a presidential election than what it’s in reality. I mean, its super important, but he doesn’t drive the country like a fucking bus, it’s more like hes the admiral and the country is a fleet of ships that all need to be coordinating with one another.

      If people want really change, then they need to put as much importance to local elections of all levels as they do for the presidential election… hell, maybe put slightly more importance to the local elections.

    • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Also, as a simple demonstration…I vote for Biden!

      There, that’s exactly the same thing as voting for Biden in the coming election. I’m not saying don’t, because god forbid Trump fucks this country over once more. No, what I’m saying is:

      #1 let’s vote via phone constantly… Oh the public hasn’t agreed with anything you did for 3 weeks? GTFO, you gave it a good try!

      #2 currently we don’t actually vote for the president or in any direct way actually do for him. The electoral college does, we don’t. The electors are not mind controlled by anyone, they literally could give us the finger and vote Trump into office.

      #3 if we voted electronically via our phones, we would still not influence the election of the president in a direct way, so why the hesitation to make elections faster and less expensive?..is it because then we would really know how we all feel?

    • Blaine@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Watch some of Larry Summers talks - he predicted this inflation as Biden was gearing up to pass the IRA. He bailed out deadbeat students, screwing over people like me who worked their way through college. This increased the amount of money circulating in the economy. Then he printed trillions of dollars to hand out to folks, increasing it even more.

      Biden’s policies directly contributed to and exacerbated inflation, rewarding irresponsible actors and punishing responsible ones. Even democrats and progressives (such as Larry Summers) can see this.

      In case you don’t know, Larry Summers was Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton and Director of the National Economic Council under Obama (and the President of Harvard in between) - so this isn’t some far out right-wing talking point. Biden wanted a big bailout bill to take credit for, and he fucked the economy in the process.

      Edit: I see downvotes, but no rebuttals. So I’ll double-down with links to the interviews I’m referencing.

      • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
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        4 months ago

        I don’t think anyone’s bothered because of how obviously wrong what you’ve written is to anyone with a decent memory.

        Inflation had already peaked when the inflation reduction act was passed in August 2022. It had already blown past 9%. Predicted means guessing something before it happens, not after. Inflation decreased steadily after the act passed. If you’re trying to argue that it stopped it from slowing down faster that would be pretty silly when America had a relatively better recovery from inflation than most countries. You’re also blaming more inflation on a mass student loan forgiveness that never even happened. Unless you’re blaming public service loan forgiveness and stuff.

        https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_08102022.pdf

        https://www.statista.com/statistics/273418/unadjusted-monthly-inflation-rate-in-the-us/

        But no, go on about how something Biden did magically created global inflation. /sigh

        • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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          4 months ago

          also, and I will keep beating this drum, obama had the fed rate at 2.5 about when he left office and trump whined and bullied the fed to bring it to zero just before covid because they where “conspiring” to ruin his economy. fed rates should only be lowered when there is cause (like a pandemic) and not because he want stock market to go burr. idealy its raised and lowered slowly but because trump pushed it unnaturally low we had to have the sudden big jumps under biden.

        • Blaine@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          Not a single rebuttal to any of the points raised in the interviews I linked…

          Sad.