{"id":304337,"date":"2025-12-08T03:40:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T03:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/304337\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T03:40:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T03:40:16","slug":"affordability-part-ii-paul-krugman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/304337\/","title":{"rendered":"Affordability, Part II – Paul Krugman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Using<\/a><\/p>\n

In last week\u2019s primer<\/a> I showed that the media\u2019s usual story \u2014 that Americans have been impoverished by the surge in inflation that began in 2021 \u2014 isn\u2019t right. In fact, according to the conventional measure that economists use to gauge purchasing power \u2013 real income \u2013 the purchasing power of most Americans is higher today than it was before the 2000 pandemic. But in last week\u2019s primer I also argued that looking only at income divided by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) means that we miss some important ways in which the current economy is worse than the conventional measures indicate. In particular, I emphasized the adverse effects of high borrowing costs and low hiring, which aren\u2019t included in the CPI.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, I also argued our general sense of affordability encompasses more than just purchasing power. We also care about economic inclusion, security, and fairness.<\/p>\n

Beyond the paywall I\u2019ll explain these concepts and how they help explain Americans\u2019 economic dissatisfaction. Specifically, I\u2019ll address the following:<\/p>\n

1. Why life doesn\u2019t feel affordable when people aren\u2019t able to buy those goods and services that make them feel that they are full members of society.<\/p>\n

2. Why life doesn\u2019t feel affordable unless people feel assured that a stretch of bad luck won\u2019t lead to financial disaster<\/p>\n

3. Why it\u2019s important to people that prices reflect their sense of fair play, and that they don\u2019t see themselves being taken advantage of by those in positions of privilege and power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In last week\u2019s primer I showed that the media\u2019s usual story \u2014 that Americans have been impoverished by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-304337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}