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this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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Real wages, wages controlled for inflation, expressed in 1982-1984 dollars, on average have surpassed where they were before the pandemic.
Real wages in October 2023: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/realer.pdf
Real wages in December 2019: https://stats.bls.gov/news.release/archives/realer_01142020.pdf
In December 2019 it was $10.96 /hr expressed in 1982-1984 dollars. In October 2023 it was $11.05 /hr in 1982-1984 dollars.
So yes, purchasing power restored. Of course this is an average. So while most people have had their purchasing power restored, if someone is in a industry like tech that got hit hard by interest rates, they may not have experienced this. The wage gains have also been more pronounced for people with lower incomes than with higher incomes. So people with higher incomes are less likely to have seen their full purchasing power restored.
But hey our economy was nowhere near perfect in 2019 before the pandemic either. Let's make it better by shifting focus to income inequality, reversing disastrous tax cuts made by Trump, improving our housing supply shortages, trying to find ways to effectively get the investor class to pay their fair share, etc etc. Biden's increase of the corporate tax rate and creation of an internationally enforced corporate minimum tax to prevent tax dodging, and increased resources to the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats are good starts, but there's so much more to do. This inflation issue that has largely resolved now is just sucking all the air out of the room and distracting from all these other problems, many of which need local or state solutions.