Most Americans strongly dislike inflation and do not believe wage increases come close to offsetting price increases, suggests a paper discussed at the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) conference on March 28.
“One view of economists is that after enough time has passed, wages will adjust to prices and ultimately things will be equivalent. But people perceive this to happen very slowly. They very much think that wages grow much more slowly than prices,” the author, Stefanie Stantcheva of Harvard University, said in an interview with The Brookings Institution.
According to her paper―”Why Do We Dislike Inflation?”―80% of respondents to recent surveys she conducted believe prices systematically increase faster than wages. Moreover, when they do receive a raise, people tend to attribute it to job performance or career progression rather than an adjustment for inflation, she writes.