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Proprietary Data Insights Top Stock Searches This Week
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Inflation |
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Some Good Inflation News (for a Change) |
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At The Juice, we tell it like it is – while trying to keep it light and help you make sense of things. If there’s a silver lining, we don’t ignore it in favor of a sexy or shocking headline. But other sources have a way of taking a story or data and finding only the negative in it. Case in point: A SmartAsset study that came out last week about cost of living amid inflation. It seems like almost every news outlet went with a variation of the same headline: “Making $100,000 in New York City Feels Like Only $36,000.” That is, after adjusting for taxes and cost of living, a $100,000 salary in NYC is worth only $35,791. Everyone, including financial and popular media, ran with that headline, following it with similar numbers in Honolulu ($36,026), San Francisco ($36,445), Washington, D.C. ($44,307), and Los Angeles ($44,623). Funny thing is, in the actual study, SmartAsset’s angle was the complete opposite: It focused on where $100K goes furthest. A more positive angle most of the media either ignored or buried. $100,000 in Memphis goes farthest, feeling like $86,444. This is because the city’s cost of living sits 14% lower than the national average. Rounding out the top five:
Lots of Texas. Other notables on the list: #10 St. Louis ($79,921), #15 Nashville ($77,782), #20 Las Vegas ($74,889), #23 Tampa ($73,850), #29 Charlotte ($72,985), #31 Buffalo ($72,840), #39 Atlanta ($70,317), and #50 Colorado Springs ($66,125). Put another positive way, you have myriad options for where to live – and live well – on $100,000 a year. Or less. As great as NYC, LA, and San Francisco are, America doesn’t revolve around them.
The Bottom Line: Yes, things are rough for large swaths of the population. But silver linings exist, such as higher savings rates (which we discussed yesterday) and places where your money still has legs. Something else you don’t hear much in the news: It’s been worse. Much worse. This chart shows inflation between 1970 and 1985. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics The late ’70s and early ’80s weren’t good in America. Sometimes it helps to not only look for, but find silver linings and focus on them. There’s also some comfort in knowing things have been worse, so they could be worse now. It looks like we’re on the backend of the current period of high inflation. All signs point to things getting better sooner rather than later. This isn’t 1980. |
Freshly Squeezed |
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