Here's a chart that shows common goods increasing prices and our wages...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday that the price of food and beverages rose 4.8 percent. At the same time, real weekly earnings failed to keep pace, rising 0.9 percent for the year. In the simplest of terms, a dollar earned bought less.

The price of eggs rose 29.2 percent in 2007, while the price of fresh whole milk was up 13.1 percent. Since July, when milk prices first soared, the price of fresh whole milk has risen by almost 23 percent.

But consumers perhaps most felt the energy-price squeeze. Gasoline prices rose 8.2 percent on average last year, the slowest rate of growth since 2002. But pump prices began climbing anew in October and for the last quarter of 2007 average prices rose by just more than 30 percent.
The inflation news would be worse if not for China. Prices for the types of consumer goods that are coming almost exclusively from China were down last year as in earlier years, serving to hold back broader U.S. consumer inflation.

Apparel prices fell 0.4 percent in 2007, footwear prices fell 0.9 percent and the price of furniture and bedding - China- and Brazil-dominated products that once were the domain of the Carolinas - fell by 0.9 percent.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011708M.shtml

I've seen my hourly rate decrease over the years, rather than increase (while my skill set has increased). I blame this on out-sourcing and importing cheap labor from India and China.

Wages have been going down, from my perspective, not up.

If it does, it may include the rise in 'wages' for the top corporate officers too. Last figures I saw DID INCLUDE the top levels of corporate bosses, even CEOs who drove their companies into the ditch.

Think about that.

What are the REAL workers actually dealing with as far as income if the CEOs' earnings are considered in determining the overall wage 'increase'?

But not to worry, Bush says the economy ROCKS!

Prices may be going down on the cheap Chinese crap, but I avoid buying any of it. It isn't really cheaper, as you have to replace the stuff more often, because it is junk.

All the things we must buy all the time have increased in price dramatically! There are things that I used to buy as a special treat for us, like a steak once every 5 or 6 months, that I don't buy anymore. I've resorted to making a lot of things from scratch that I never did before, like perogies using won ton wrappers, and hamburger and hot dog buns because I have a bread machine and they're cheaper and really taste much better than the peroggies at $2+ a box and buns at $2+ a package!

I'm retired so I don't buy much clothing or footware, and I'll probably croak before buying any new furniture. I've seen quite a few sale items that interested me, but opted not to go to the store because it just wasn't worth the gas to get there and back!

Now they're up to $2.99. Nothing is immune from Bush-flation.

Potstickers using chicken thighs are very frugal. I make them often.

perogies, raviolis, and a lot of other things with them rather than buying the frozen ones. I also make individual lasagna's with them that are terrific!

Show me just one of those items listed that isn't OVER 4.1%. The items we buy every day to survive are up a HUGE amount. The items we only buy occasionally are mostly up, and a few down. The NET is huge inflation on a day to day basis.

What kind of shit is the government trying to feed us? The unemployment rate is DOWN??? No! They just quit counting all those people who have been off unemployment benefits for YEARS. And there has been a NET job LOSS since the republicans took over "management" of the government.

This country is in DEEP shit.

calculate inflation. I never understood why, but they're not.

My husband was doing most of the grocery shopping for a while so I didn't really notice how much the prices went up. I just noticed that we spend a whole lot more of our monthly income at the grocery store. Last weekend we wanted to make our favorite "cheap" meal, pinto beans with ham. I bought the bag of pinto beans for $2.59 (used to be under $1) and a slice of lean ham steak for almost $6 (used to be around $2.50).

It is still cheap since we had plenty of leftovers for the next day, but compared to a couple of years ago, it now costs almost 3 times as much.

Milk is around $4 here if you don't mind the growth hormones. If you want to buy organic, you'll shell out $6.