The U.S. Labor Department said Friday that its consumer price index in November from a year earlier, the biggest increase in almost 40 years. In the decade before the pandemic, the average increase was a bit less than 2%. The main concern about faster inflation is that it will erode consumers' purchasing power, forcing them to deplete savings as they spend more for the same goods and services.
Americans, though, appear positioned well to withstand the inflationary fallout until the economy works through the issues — mainly Covid-19 and the resulting — that are behind the jump in consumer prices. The Federal Reserve said this week that U.S. household since the start of the pandemic to a record $144.7 trillion. That's a whopping 31% increase over the six quarters ended Sept. 30. The all-time high for any calendar year before 2020 was $12.5 trillion in 2019.
DataTrek Research Inc. posed a very interesting question this week: If inflation is so bad, why aren't more Americans searching for more affordable options?
They analyzed Google and found that searches for "cheap" and "coupon" have not risen in 2021 and are even below any recent year. Perhaps even more amazing, they found that search volumes for "discount" are near five-year lows "just when they should be climbing because of holiday shopping and inflation.”
Here's what they concluded. Mooers, are you in one of them? Come and vote now!
Conclusion 1: Your wage is rising and it's enough to keep you from worrying too much about inflation when it comes to actual purchase decisions.
Conclusion 2: You have become adept at finding low prices without using common words like "cheap", "coupon" and "discount" in their Google searches.
Conclusion 3: You think inflation won't last long and are reluctant to change their buying patterns just to save a few dollars.
Conclusion 4: You are more interested in finding what they want in an environment of persistent shortages rather than in focusing on the cheapest items, which may well be out of stock anyway.
Other answers? Comment here and let us know.