US workers in debt to buy groceries - 'I had to downgrade my life'
www.bbc.com
Americans are taking loans to afford basic necessities - as groceries prices have surged by 25%.

…

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.

  • Blaine@lemmy.ml
    130·
    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
      171·
      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
        13·
        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
        120·
        4 months ago

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

        Sad.