The Vanishing American Dream: Wages Stagnant as Prices Soar

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Despite years of recovery talk since COVID, inflation has wiped out household income gains, leaving median earnings stuck at 2019 levels. Rising costs for essentials like housing, healthcare, and insurance are pushing families into a financial hamster wheel, while only high earners see modest gains. Without real wage growth and relief from soaring prices, the gap between the cost of living and the average paycheck keeps widening—making the American dream feel increasingly out of reach.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
The need for wage gains is. It's important when you've
got an inflationary environment. But man, I want to talk
about inflation taking a bite out of Americans wages. Last year, Wow,
data that just came out showed that average households haven't
gained ground economically since COVID. Since COVID, rising prices have hurt.

(00:48):
Inflation adjusted median household income last year was roughly at
the same level as it was in twenty nineteen before
the pandemic. Again, you had sharp declines during COVID, kind
of a tepid recovery after the fact, but the inflation
adjusted median household income was eighty three thousand, seven hundred

(01:11):
and thirty basically no difference statistically from twenty twenty three.
It didn't go anywhere outside of high earners incomes. Of
high earners, their incomes rose four point two percent last year,
which was obviously much better, but still no great shakes

(01:33):
across the board. Again, this is what happens. This is
what inflation does. We really need to see wages pick up.
Inflation has run much much hotter for an extended period
of time, making the bare necessities very very expensive for

(01:54):
people to buy. Story after story coming down the pipe
where other costs are being and on you, things like
health insurance, car insurance, you name it. Those things go up.
Bare necessities go up. You're not making much more, but
you've got to spend more.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Well.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
That puts you in a very difficult situation. Put you
in a situation we're not able to save as much,
and it is a bit of a despair loop, if
you will. It really is people feel like that they
are on a hamster wheel and they can't get off
that hamster wheel, or can't give another example, can't see

(02:34):
the light at the end of the tubble. That's extraordinarily problematic.
This is again, first and foremost, Trump really needs to
be working on getting prices down.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
PPI came in producer prices, warehousing a little bit lower
than expected. They're talking about FED lowering rates. That's not
going to help much. Prices need to come down. Wages
need to come up. We need to balance the scale,
if you will, when it comes to living here in America,

(03:06):
because without a doubt, it's completely out of whack. Talked
about the median price a medium income for a household
and compare it to the price of a median home
at this point time, they don't add up. The numbers
don't add up anymore. So something has to give. Either
we're going to have a major deflationary type of the

(03:29):
situation where prices are going to come down, and I
don't see that happening quite frankly, Or there's gonna be
more unrest out there. There's gonna be a lot more unhappy
people when that American dream feels out of reach. Ah,
bad things can happen. Watch Dog and Wall Street dot
Com