From Milwaukee Courier, Natalie Yahr for Wisconsin Watch:
“Concern about prices rising is not just prices rising, but it’s against the backdrop of how fast wages are rising. How many people are keeping up, and what components of the population are keeping up?” Chinn said.
So…without ado:
Figure 1: Average hourly wage in 2025$ using CPI-all urban (blue), using CPI for wage earners and clerical workers (red). Source: BLS and author’s calculations.
Lettuce is down 16.4%, a record decrease in one month for a food item.
You can’t say that Trump isn’t making food more affordable thanks to RFK.
I’m wondering if there is a Kalshi bet on which will occur first:
Trump re-opening the Reflecting Pool or re-opening the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s best people are on it.
On a related issue, over 90% of survey respondents report putting off medical treatment because of the cost:
https://www.jgwentworth.com/resources/medical-emergency
That is not, of course, a bug in the system. The purpose of copayments and large insurance deductibles is to discourage the use of medical services. There was never any effort to hide that fact. This transfer of cost to households was sometimes advertised as an attempt to cut down on “frivolous” or “unnecessary” medical care, but those adjectives suggest some mechanism for discrinating between necessary and unnecessary care that isn’t actually part of the system. The goal was to discourage use, and its working.
Insurance firms’ efforts to delay, deny and depose are also working. By the way, Luigi Mangione is back in court tomorrow.
Based on what I have learned from Trump over the years about bleach, vaccines, autism, Tylenol, pool liners, magnets and windmills over the years, I can’t think of a better qualified person to redesign US aircraft carriers.
Or as carrier pilot and astronaut Mark Kelly put it: “Trump should stick to what he know best — ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bullsh*t.”
Yes -the interesting aspect of that inflation report was “Real wages –0.2%” We are in the S — Slowing growth – Weakening labor market, softer retail activity, declining labor-force participation and growing recession risk. H — Higher prices – Tariffs, energy, supply-chain costs and increasingly aggressive corporate repricing. I — Investment/income pressure – Small businesses divert working capital toward tariffs, take on debt and reduce their ability to invest or hire. At the household level, real wages have turned negative. T — Trump policy mix is generating the simultaneous supply-side constraints/tightening credit conditions – 30-year Treasury bond yield is approximately 5.21% – economy.
One example: Trump’s tariffs are transferring resources from small businesses into the federal government, forcing businesses to divert scarce working capital toward taxes, compressing margins, discouraging investment, and eventually forcing price increases. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-08-14/trump-s-tariffs-are-an-existential-threat-to-small-businesses
Here’s Secretary Bessent on inflation:
NEWSMAX: The cost of living is fueling the rise of socialism. There’s a feeling that things are too expensive.
Bessent: Look, people should be upset. The Biden administration torched them.
Well, that seals it. I’m never going to vote for Biden again.
Bessent: The Biden administration had 21.5% unemployment, 4% or 5% loss of real wages.
Wait, 21.5% unemployment? The BLS shows a peak of 14.8% — in May of 2020. I wonder who was president in May 2020?
Oh, maybe Bessent is referring to U6. The BLS shows a U6 peak of 22.9%, so maybe that is what Bessent is referring to — also in May of 2020.
And the BLS shows real wages increasing over the Biden administration — or see above.
Maybe they should just go back to Haitians eating pets. It’s more believable than the blatant lies coming out of Bessent’s mouth.