Why Everyone’s Inflation “Basket” is Different #shorts

The sentiment as expressed seems to be keying off of what's going on in inflation and what consumers have to spend on everyday items, whether it's gas or food or healthcare costs. The reason why spending hasn't deteriorated to the same degree that sentiment has is that I think that the hard data, the spending data, is driven more by the labor market and confidence in jobs. So, it's like you've got these two macro conditions that are infiltrating this soft data and hard data in different ways. It's also the case, and here's another K, within inflation statistics you've got a higher inflation rate for the non-discretionary things. So, the needs components of inflation, what we spend money on. Again, energy, food, healthcare costs, insurance. Those are the needs. Well, the lower income consumer spends a disproportionate share on those needs components. So, not only do they have lower income what is being taken out of their nominal income to get to the real income is a larger nut than up the income spectrum where there's a larger proportion of take-home that can be devoted to those discretionary items, the wants components. So, it it's also the case that for the consumer, those that are feeling much more angst uh it's probably because their personal inflation basket might look entirely different than somebody else's inflation basket. We talk about inflation as if it's the singular thing. Well, an example, I already mentioned my parent. My parents are still alive, they're 88 and 96 years old. They live in assisted living. Um it's being funded for them. They don't have any other expenses. Uh thankfully for everybody on the road, uh they don't my dad doesn't drive anymore. Um so they're not they're not filling up a car. They're not paying for food. Their their health care costs are covered by um Medicare. Um somebody else who is low income, they're driving an hour to and from work. They've got to, you know, feed a family. Their basket their in place personal inflation basket looks entirely different than my parents inflation basket. So um that's also the rub here is that it's those needs components that are really where things are biting and it bites more on that lower income. So it exacerbates that problem.