True. As money in the system constantly leaks to the wealthiest and they consolidate control over prices and power, a quantity of income will go perpetually down in value; nothing that is measured by buying power or has fiscal value is what it used to be, and will continue on this trend until the ENTIRE system is FUNDAMENTALLY changed.

You ever watch that movie Office Space from like 1999? In the scene in the beginning where he's explaining to the shrink how "every day is the worst day of his life", the economy is basically like this for the cast majority of people, and will continue to be for a higher and higher percentage of the population. This is because we live in a system that is built and everybody accepts the functions and goals of consolidation of wealth and power as fundamental to life as we know it.

There are small "woke" movements that are trying to change that in various ways, but not until we have real, open, intelligent and educated discussions that involve EVERYBODY - left, right, liberal, and conservative, will anything change.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: nobody wins until we ALL win.

A lot of dumb people here make a lot of money and spend more than they make.

the COL also varies wildly. I could move 1.5 hours away from where I live now and pay like 1/3 of what I do now for rent/mortgage. But I'd have to drive 3+ hours a day to get to my job. and the salaries 1.5 hours outside my city are literally half what they are in the city. i'd have to take 50% paycut to work in a rural area.

things cost a lot in places where salaries are high. it's that simple. high income areas have huge demand for jobs housing, and other necessiteis, so costs are high.

but nobody wants to live where it's cheap to live because there are limited job opportunities. I could afford a mansion in louisiana... but my job doesn't exist there and if it did, it would pay like 40K a year vs the 150K i make currently.

hence lots of people are moving more and more to the major cities trying to get the bigger salaries.

There is some truth in the common refrain of "Americans overspend on cars, junk, etc", but the answer to your question is very fucking expensive. I moved to the french Riviera and my cost of living went way down compared to Florida. And that includes going from employer funded healthcare to paying out of pocket for all health care in France. Everything is cheaper, food, car, insurance, I even spend less on fuel because I only need to drive once per week so I only fill my car up with 7€/gallon gas every few weeks.

would love to see some numbers on where tf that salary is going