Letter to the editor: Inflation or overdue adjustment

The cost of living has reportedly increased by 20% in the last four years. If we extrapolate this over the last 20 years, our cost of living would have increased by 1% annually…

Before COVID-19, the base or entry-level wage in Wisconsin was between a few cents over $7 an hour and maybe $10 an hour. Today, that wage range has doubled and is probably now between $16 and $19 and more an hour for fast food jobs, store clerks, warehouse workers, etc. Those wages have more or less doubled. The catalyst for that wage increase was COVID-19.

Is there anyone who can say with a serious face that these wage increases were not long overdue?

There are probably other causes of inflation than just wage increases. Perhaps a small improvement in corporate profits. Perhaps a consequence of Trump's tariffs on China.

I'm 84. I saw Reagan bust the traffic controllers' union. I saw jobs (and the factory machinery that supports that production) exported en masse to China and Mexico. I saw Walker bust the unions in Wisconsin.

I also experienced crude oil costing $18 per barrel in 1980. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $129 per barrel today. Crude oil closed at $76.61 in the US on Friday, August 16, a 41% reduction in cost. The price of crude oil is rising, but far less than general inflation.

Those of us who have participated in the economy over the last 40 years or so have benefited enormously from the decline in real wages (of others) and the decline in real energy costs. What we are experiencing now is not inflation, but a long overdue partial adjustment to the status quo of perhaps 20 years ago. But we still have a long way to go to get things back to where they were.

If we want to make America great again, there's only one way to do it. And that's to continue the current course of Biden and Harris and improve the living standards of those who go to work today, who could then provide the cash flow, purchasing power and energy to boost the entire economy and boost all of us. If a 100% wage increase only leads to a 20% increase in overall inflation, a 5% annual wage increase would lead to a 1% increase in annual inflation. I think we could all live with that.

Jim Riead

Egg Harbor, Wisconsin