Current Events Essay: Inflation in the U.S.

Article 1:

“Inflation has fallen. Why are groceries still so expensive?”, By Abha Bhattarai and Jeff Stein, The Washington Post, Feb 2, 2024

The current state of inflation has been looking better for the grand majority of most prices, allowing more people to be confident in supporting the economy, but as the article states, it’s not true for everywhere. Many Americans are still concerned about the massive price spike that groceries gained over the COVID-19 pandemic, and rightfully so as “Grocery prices have jumped by 25 percent over the past four years” (p.2). These costs are what most people have said they are concerned about, with “more than two-thirds of voters say inflation has hit them hardest through higher food prices” (p.3), but many of these causes that have made inflation such a massive issue are able to be dealt with by policy makers, with no control over the virus, supply chain disruptions, and the ability for companies to keep prices high. Luckily, not all products are still experiencing this cost spike, as many food items such as eggs (-20%), lettuce (-17%), and tomatoes (-7%), reducing their costs after the many different events, such as the “ongoing avian flu outbreak” that gave eggs a massive spike that died down shortly, “Droughts and extreme heat” making farming difficult, and “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” that used up lots of wheat, corn, and vegetables.

Article 2:

“Inflation is nearly back to normal. But high prices have changed Americans’ lives”, By Alicia Wallace, CNN, Dec 27, 2023

The prices that Americans had to face in the early 20’s had made a large impact on how people saw money, with many people that were looking to save as much as they could and be able to receive aid in relief programs. But, with the very lucky case of the employment rates stabilizing quickly, “inflation had moderated some — the Consumer Price Index had cooled to 6.5% in January 2023 from its 9.1% peak in June 2022”, giving people the ability to finally start supporting themselves again. Many relief centers were reaching all time highs with their members, including Minnesota Hunger Solutions with a “record 7 million visitors” in 2023. These costs of living have hurt especially the lower-class, taking up over 30% of their paycheck and making them have to cut corners just to survive. Many people suffering in this period are being trapped in debt death spirals, becoming late on card payments and gaining fees for late payments, and eventually ending up unable to afford renting/mortgage payments and becoming homeless.

These two articles seem to focus on most of the same things, mainly how people are having a hard time affording essential human needs and how it was one of the effects of the COVID-19 virus. The first article was more recent and is able to focus on the actions that are taking place to help reduce the effects of inflation and the recent slowdown of the yearly inflation amount, while the second article focuses on the different people that were affected and how they had to push through to keep their jobs/homes while they were being drained of of their savings.

I believe that the effects of inflation is still a very prevalent thing that still becomes the breaking point on whether or not someone becomes homeless or not, it takes a lot away from people, and makes it almost impossible to be able to provide for themselves and be able to get specialized resources for help like hospitals and therapy. My brother and his wife are both working jobs, with both of them paying decently well, but they still feel as if there is a slim chance that they will be able to buy their own house in the near future. Many people I know have become very paranoid and are taking every chance they can get to make sure they don’t fall into poverty, taking advantage of cheaper CE classes in highschool, taking multiple jobs early on, and depending on their parents to live in their house until they finish college. The thing that annoys me quite a bit though is the fact that most of the people that are affected are already struggling with poverty, are war veterans, and just got unlucky with their choices. These people didn’t deserve to go through these things yet are required to in order to barely live, even with some of these increased pressure on impoverished people, many different urbanized places have decided to not help them and are actively trying to make it harder for them to get out of their difficult financial situation by making it impossible for them to use city benches for sleeping, tearing down their tents downtown, and making it difficult for them to get jobs with many people painting them as gross and barbaric when many of them were just people that came one check short and now have to worry about freezing in the winter.

The pandemic’s impact was a large cause of inflation in the U.S. but it was also affecting other countries, causing major amounts of inflation to European and Asian countries in the early months of 2022, these caused many markets and trading opportunities to fail and made GDPs drop.