August 14, 2024
The July Consumer Price Index report showed a slightly lower inflation rate than had generally been expected. Coupled with a good report on the Producer Price Index on Tuesday, it seems very likely the Federal Reserve Board will now begin cutting interest rates, as the inflation rate is approaching its 2.0 percent target.
In the face of what seems like unambiguously good economic news, NPR chose to feature two people who are struggling in the economy. This is a bit hard to understand.
There are always tens of millions of people who are struggling in the economy even in the best of times, but the recent news is that inflation is slowing sharply and real wages are rising. Why would this be a good opportunity to highlight people showing the opposite story. It might have been more reasonable to feature some of the record number of people traveling by air or taking vacations by car this summer.
This decision by NPR is similar to a decision by the New York Times, which chose on July 4th weekend to highlight an admittedly atypical worker to advance its claim that we are seeing an increasingly bifurcated economy. In fact, the data show the economy has been getting less bifurcated since the pandemic, with the lowest-paid workers experiencing extraordinarily rapid wage growth over the last four years.
To be clear, low-wage workers are still struggling. Even if their wages outpaced inflation by 10 percentage points over the last four years, they still would have difficulty making ends meet. It is just odd that major media outlets would choose to highlight their plight when they are doing relatively well rather than when they are doing relatively poorly.
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