A staggering 80% of American households are financially worse off than they were before COVID-19

Is this surprising given stagnant wages and drastic inflation for the last few years straight?

The advice in that article is primo out of touch and humorous. They give statistics that people's savings and assets are down X amount, and the first advice is save for an emergency. Running out of savings?! Just save more, five head.

Now ask the CEOs how they’re doing.

Mitch McConnell staring off into space - Good thing Americans had those stimulus checks to live off of for the past 30 months.

I canceled all our streaming services and Amazon prime. I canceled my phone service and opted for a $15/month plan (Mint). I buy a cheap phone, about $70 bucks. I asked my wife to stop buying me snack foods at the grocery store to save ~$50/week. All told I think we are not spending ~$300/month that I can now put towards our cars that are starting to break down. Someone said something about savings but I only cultivate dust and stones there.

Those 'record corporate profits' seen since 2020 didn't manifest in a vacuum.

I got a 40% raise over the pandemic and I still feel like I am struggling.

I found out my wife was pregnant about a week before shit really hit the fan. We were completely prepared, had money saved up and everything.

The covid hit. We both lost our jobs, and unemployment wasn't nearly enough to cover the bills. I couldn't find another job anywhere.

We lost everything. Both of my cars got repoed, I get eviction notices every single month because rent is behind. We pulled out credit cards for food because we don't qualify for assistance.

Slowly, we both got jobs, I got lucky and jumped right back into my career that I love, and we're still trying to get on our feet. The credit cards are killing us.

Oh, and when our daughter was born, she had to be life flown to another city because she almost passed away (long story). 150k bill. After insurance.

So, is nobody going to mention the picture of two smiling kayakers chosen to accompany this article?

It was another really good chance for wealth transfers

Yes, let's raise rent 40% just as people are financially disadvantaged.. That is sustainable.

Not surprising at all.

Corporations made BANK and all the CEOs put it directly into their pockets.

Increasing the money supply didn't help the poor and instead helped the rich just like every other time we've tried that?! I can't believe it!

Meanwhile, comparing 2019 with 2023, Elon Musk had an increase in net worth of about 707%. That's a plus of ca. $157.700.000.000. Yes, that's 157,7 billion.

https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/

No. More. Billionaires. Yank their fucking wealth

It’s rather negligent of the article to ignore inflation on other areas such as basic needs as well such as price gouging for toilet paper, the immediate war with Russia that suddenly caused gas spikes, and the continuing shrinkflation of basic necessities to be considered ‘luxury’. Bread for the fam shouldn’t be considered a luxury.

Over here in the, "no fucking shit" category of news...

People who had the money for assets got it.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/economic-inequality-wealth-gap-pandemic/

"Gee......you f***ing think?" -Me, single income father of three-

Don't eat the rich. Their greed is too fattening.

Kill the rich instead.

The implication being that covid-19 is a field wealth redistribution program?

Uh how is it not higher?

Who are these 20%ers?

That's funny, I thought the fed printed an extra $5 trillion during covid? I wonder where it all could have gone!

They should have been born to billionaire parents. I didn't think it was necessary at the time and was born to average parents, and while I regret my decision, I don't think I have the right to complain.

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But the people on the TV said the stock market went up!

I'm going for a couple promotions because I hope they'll help me catch up. But I'm not at all sure I'll catch up even if they work out.

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Pretty sure that was the whole point of Covid. None of this shit was an accident.

And we're cheerleading for our money to be sent to other countries' wars.

I don't believe it. Anyone who's in a career position has probably been getting a raise the last couple years to combat inflation and retain during the great resignation. I'm sure plenty of people are worse off but 80%? No way

I know it's hot to blame price hikes rn, and there's some bullshit going on with housing prices, but I'm going to need to see some household budget details before I break out the violin.

I've seen so many otherwise-defined-as-adults make very poor financial decisions for decades. Lifestyle creep is real.

Everyone has a budget they stick to, right? This isn't a years-long delay on an inevitable recession due to tonedeaf revenge spending to counter existential depression, right?

I don't think printing money and handing it out helped. But I'm some sort of pariah for pointing out that it may have something to do with inflation.