‘Then Go Somewhere Cheaper’ Isn’t a Good Response to ‘My Usual Places Are More Expensive Now’

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Friday, December 15, 2023

 

In recent weeks, Twitter has been full of insalubrious examples of Democratic Party–adjacent journalists mocking people who complain that things are more expensive now than they were a few years ago. By and large, these exchanges tend to go like this:

 

Person A: It is more expensive for me to shop at [Place] or eat at [Restaurant] than it was in 2019, and this is making life worse for me.

 

Journalist: Why are you shopping and eating there, when you could instead be shopping or eating at another place I’ve found online? Here is a screenshot of the prices at these other places. Look, those prices are lower than the places you mentioned.

 

For two good examples of this, see here and here.

 

I understand why so many journalists are doing this. They’re doing it because they know full well that the inflation that Joe Biden’s policies “supercharged” has destroyed his presidency, and they believe that, if they can talk their way out of that reality, they might be able to save him come 2024. What I don’t understand is why they expect it to work.

 

The implication that undergirds this mockery is that the cavilers are complaining about the price of “luxury goods.” Usually, this isn’t true. But, even when it is, it’s completely irrelevant to the objection. What matters — the only thing that matters — is whether prices are higher than they were then, and, if they are, whether those higher prices have been offset by higher wages. It is true that, practically speaking, inflation matters most to the people at the bottom of the economic scale, because those people have less disposable income. But, politically, the effect can be measured pretty much anywhere. If Whole Foods is 20 percent more expensive than it was in 2019 and the people who shop there do not have 20 percent more money, that’s a problem for them. That “Aldi is cheaper than Whole Foods” might be true, but it doesn’t really matter to the point that is being made, which is that things are more expensive than they were before. This is especially true if Aldi is also 20 percent more expensive than it used to be.

 

Whether one is poor, middle-class, or rich, we all know how much things cost us, and, when those things cost us more without our wages having gone up by a commensurate amount, it upsets us. In 2019, a trip for the four people in my family to our favorite pizza restaurant cost $65. Now, it costs $80. It isn’t especially important what we order there, or whether snarky writers for the New York Times believe that our tastes are extravagant; what’s important is that, for the last four years, we’ve pretty much always ordered the same thing, and that, over a relatively short period of time, we have had to hand over more and more money for it. Certainly, it is nice that the rate of this increase has slowed in the last year. But that doesn’t prevent me from noticing the cumulative effects and remembering what life was like in 2021, 2020, or 2019.

 

One might have thought this would be politically obvious — especially in America, where “can” and “want” are very different things. Can we go somewhere less good? Yes. Can we order less, or choose different items from the menu? Yes. Can we have two glasses of wine instead of a bottle? Yes. Does the prospect of having to do so make me feel warm and fuzzy toward the economy under Joe Biden? No, it damn well does not. In 1980, Ronald Reagan asked a famous question: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” By mocking those who report that they are not, many within America’s journalist class are acknowledging that the answer to that question is a resounding “No.” They shouldn’t be shocked when there are consequences to that choice, but, if the last decade is anything to go by, they will be.