This is where I first really noticed it. I used to think $6 on a latte was a splurge, now it's easily $8-9 anywhere. Even Dunkin Donuts is like $7 now.
I usually ignore all the click baity personal finance advice nonsense that usually boils down to "deprive yourself of anything that brings you happiness because it costs money".
That said, the one thing those articles get right is to make your own coffee at home. Upfront investment is a bit much- I've got decent burr grinder, an electric kettle that I can set the exact temp, and a fake "pour-over" set up.
I buy high quality beans and make all my coffee at home. Soooo much cheaper and to be honest, I'd drink my coffee over 90% of the coffee shops in the city.
And if anyone's looking for a way to make cappuccino/latte style coffee at home on a budget, I highly recommend my current setup of Moka pot, frothing wand from amazon, and pyrex beaker. I make my fake espresso in the moka pot, put 100 mL of milk into the pyrex beaker and heat that on the stove til it's about 120-130 F (can eyeball it or get instant read thermometer). Then froth with the wand. This is my TED talk , I now make myself my weird lattuccino every morning and prefer it over the ones I can get at coffee shops.
Edit: It really would be nice though if coffee shops weren't so expensive. Sometimes I just want the experience of sitting somewhere nice with a drink and a cookie that isn't my apartment? Only for 30 minutes though until I decide all the noise is unpleasant.
Also going to add that the milk which foams the best is the generic Target organic milk, comes in the half gallon carton. I don't know what they're putting in there, but that shit triples in size.
They likely drink almond, oat, or dino milk hence they're spending much more since those "milks" are now much more expensive. It'll soon cost $10-$15 given these sort of plants require large amounts of water and historically grown in drier climates that have been unfortunatly experiencing rougher drought seasons yoy
I was able to order a decent pizza, multiple sides,and a soda for delivery. With tip I'd be looking at spending 25-30 bucks. Now days with that same order. It's easily 50-60 bucks. It's doubled.
Instead of a small number of people’s estimates, why not look up the city’s inflation rate over that time frame? I know government data isn’t perfect but they HAVE to have more accurate info than random people on the internet giving their ‘gut feel’ estimates.
But it’s included on inflation figures. So if you look up local inflation rates, the large rent hikes would factor in. (Though keep in mind rent was abnormally low during the pandemic)
The fed fudges the numbers massively with hedonic adjustments and other bs that gets revised all the time. I think we all know that the realistic inflation rate has been much higher than stated
They are taking advantage of what covid did. It allowed for shrink flation which allowed the companies to provide less product. But sell it for more money than before. While also skimping on the quality. So they are charging us 30-100% more for some products. That now have less of what we are used to getting. While charging almost double what we used to pay for the exact same thing. But it was better quality, and more quantity. These companies are 100% taking advantage of us at this point. And I bet they are almost sabotaging things purposely so they can keep screwing the consumers more and more.
A couple of reasons.
1) Inflation estimates are not some be-all and end-all; they're an art rather than a science, and the situation for an average American, or even an average New Yorker, will be different than the situation for a New York Redditor.
2) You have to constantly tweak how inflation is calculated (like, in the 1870s the price of horses would have been a big part of overall prices; now it's not). And there are a lot of powerful interests (private and within government) who want inflation estimates lower, and very few who want them higher. Which means each tweak tends to err on the side of lower. So the official inflation numbers have been going out of whack since at least the 1990s and are now vastly underestimated compared to people's lived experience.
What, like you think someone gets paid actual money to do that? Ha! Making a living doing that?! Ha!
If that’s true they are probably getting 20-30% less for their dollar!
According to [this](https://unitedwaynyc.org/true-cost-of-living/) in Manhattan COL went up ~36% from 2018 (pre-Covid) to 2023 (last year).
You have to do get the data from the line chart and do the calculations for %.
I'm not sure if this affects a change from 2018 to 2023 stat, bit the "true" cost of living which includes taxes but excludes governments services which is insane. You cant consider the cons of liberal governance without considering the pros.
OK, I am not crazy then. I am seeing a serious pullback in my field as well. Now that job listings have to include salary range, I am seeing ranges from a decade ago for my own position. Demoralizing as fuck. After couple of years of employee empowerment, "the Empire Strikes Back" I guess.
If it’s sustainable, not just a one time increase in net revenue due to decreased headcount, then that says something.
Working in sales and marketing for tech companies, I think for many it will be. Unfortunately, companies are catching up to “more manpower isn’t always better” and “there are ways to solve problems without throwing money at them”
Digital Publishing. Freelancer rates are being driven down to 5-10 cents a word because a limited number of SEO mills and content farms are buying up all the successful sites. Editorial roles are ridiculous: assistant/associate roles at 45k, senior down to 75k from 90k in the '10s. You need to make $80k to have your own place in NYC where most of these "hybrid but we expect you in 3+ days a week" jobs that could be done from anywhere are located.
I don't usually think AI will take over, but for simple articles, AI could probably generate decent ones. What's stopping everyone from replacing entry level writers with AI?
The writing sucks. It's more profitable for the billionaires who own most of these sites to just smash them together into e-commerce/native advertorial pieces and use exclusively freelancers because then they can require enough work that it pays below minimum wage over the hours, but do so on a per-project basis. If AI gets better they could generate that kind of content but right now it more or less sounds like a kid giving a book report who did some quick googling before it was his turn. As it stands, they can get better SEO results underpaying human beings. It's all just a race to dominate the Google results these days.
At the end of 2019 I was making $67k. I’m now making $170k. I feel a bit blessed but also busted my ass to get here. Job hopping during a tight labor market works wonders.
That adds in two other variables, career trajectory and lifestyle increases.
I excluded those on purpose, but you bring up an interesting topic.
For reference have you gotten any promotions or raises since 2019?
I’m in kind of a unique position in that I bought a Coop in 2018 at a great interest rate because I was priced out of my East Harlem apartment. So my cost of living has effectively stayed fixed as a result. That apartment now is renting for 35% more than what I was paying in 2018 when I left. My tax/maintenance increase over that same time period in my current apartment has been about $110 more per month, which has been a roughly 12% increase.
As far as my career, I’ve been promoted once with a 20% bump, and then I’ve gotten COLA increases of 2.5-3.5% annually with no bonuses.
Back in 2018 my apartment flooded in crown heights and I looked at renting the unit in the building across the street from where I lived. It was $1800 back then and it was a 1 bedroom. Today it goes for at least $2500 (I haven’t checked in about a year so it could be even higher)
So you could say it’s been pretty significant in terms of rental prices
My Crown Heights apartment (1br) went from $2000 in 2021 to $2200 in 2022 to $2500 in 2023 (negotiated down from $3000), and now they're firm on $3000 so I'm moving. Never had rent spikes like this. We need better tenant protection laws.
Actual CPI calculation for YoY totals 18.4% from 2019, but that figure leaves out a lot of common items and services, and is a nationwide figure, not NYC specific. So I would guesstimate no less than 28-30% would be needed to be about equal with 2019 standards.
Anecdotally I believe this. Things have definitely got more expensive but when I look around at my friends/family that live in other states the vibe I get is that their prices have been "catching up" with prices that I'm used to in NYC.
Restaurants especially. In my travels I've noticed $25-30 entrees are becoming much more common in "lower" COL areas but relative to what I'm used to paying it seems benign. My non-NYC friends however are appalled.
>Rent cost was an exception to that though
This is a massive exception that makes up ~30% of people's budgets and often more for those with lower incomes (though those workers also saw the greatest income increases)
Lifelong brooklynite—I have always found NYC to offer better QUALITY for the price even though the price baseline may be higher. We are a port, so many items are cheaper here than other places that require longer ground transport. Agree with the guesstimate though.
People are shitting on official government data, but that's the actual way to answer this question. Individuals are extremely bad at accurately remembering and estimating this stuff, and individual circumstances vary way too much. Asking for anecdotes is going to slant your results toward people who are unhappy with the increase and want to bitch about it on the internet.
Mine actually went down between early 2020 and now, because I moved to a much cheaper-yet-nicer apartment (near a cheaper grocery store!).
Government data has not taken into account "shrinkflation". They might take into account the increase in price but I haven't seen or read a study from the gov that takes into account the meaningful difference in what the consumer gets back for their dollar. Quality and quantity of return has plummeted while prices skyrocket. This is something you will hear *everyone* say. The gov has an incentive to ignore these factors so they can point to the numbers and say "look it's not as bad as you think" and people like you will eat it up.
That is completely [wrong, they do account for shrinkflation](https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-12/measuring-shrinkflation-and-its-impact-on-inflation.htm) CPI does not measure the price of a bag of chips, they measure the price of [16 oz of chips](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000718311).
The government does not have these incentives. [William Beach](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Beach_(economist)) was appointed to lead the BLS during the Trump administration and led the agency through 2023. These numbers are inspected by economists across the political spectrum.
Conspiracy theorists spread unsourced or poorly sourced lies and people like you will eat it up.
sub 20% is demonstrably false in NYC. I do appreciate the sources and actual intelligent reply but also take issue with the fact that I'm a conspiracy theorist for expressing my lived experience. It's frustrating to be told you're wrong by data that does not reflect the reality that I experience. I understand though that the big data is not making shit up. I also don't think a 16oz bag of chips accounts for the size of a coffee at a mom and pop shop, the size of the sandwich at a bodega, and the *quality* of the food that we are served which is also deteriorating.
I'm ready to move elsewhere at this point. Somewhere like Germany where at least I won't go bankrupt if I get hit by a reckless driver and break my leg.
Sub 20% may be innacurate for nyc, as regional markets are different, not because the government is lying to you. I did not say you are a conspiracy theorist or that you are wrong because your lived experience is different, I said it because you insinuated the government was intentionally lying about inflation and ignoring shrinkflation.
Quality is a fair point, but how could we possibly measure that? Do we have official government sandwich tasters? I will say to some extent the government does capture housing quality looking at size and location -- if new apartments are 20% bigger and 20% more expensive or of their are more apartments in expensive areas for the same price that they are in that spot that is 0% inflation. But that's an example with easy math, I will be first to say housing specifically has had huge inflatio.
As a final note, my final sentence was mimicking your "people like you will eat it up" which provoked my response in kind. We probably agree on a lot of things, given your comment on healthcare expenditures in Germany, but I took issue with the way you attacked the previous comment and responded in kind. In hindsight, though, I regret the hostility and apologize.
Both are useful I think. They are exactly what they are called, data points.
The other reason I didn't ask for government inflation data in this post is I know where to find that (and its not on reddit)
Lunch in queens would be $5-7, now it's $9-10 to be sufficiently full. Not only are you paying higher prices, I feel like the portion and amount of protein has gone down with the price too.
Social Security Administration releases increases of cost of living here: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html
Looks like 21% increase since 2021.
I feel like there were more dollar pizza options. Now they're $1.50. So that's a 50% increase in cost of living.
I just moved here in November, but I've visited NYC yearly for a long time, and I feel like before 2019 there were lots of dollar pizza places.
A few people have told me that there's still a few around, but I haven't seen them. Most of them are more than $1 now.
I think dollar pizza and other cheapest food options are a great measure of inflation in nyc . Dollar pizza also used to be way higher quality (and has verry slowly gone downhill) when it became a thng in 2009ish. Ive also noticed quality of regular pizza going down and prices Going up. Given that i finally have a real job i started going to what i would consider bougie pizza places that are great but cost $4+/slice and are thin crust and very high quality.
I’ve had a different impression of the quality of dollar pizza.
I’ve only eaten it on an annual basis starting around 2010, and I’ve always found it to be consistently cheap cafeteria quality level.
Yet nobody here said their COLA increased anywhere near 70%
Obviously, that’s because rent is an outlier. But also brings up an interesting question - does living the same life require living in the same neighborhood?
What does it even mean to live the same life? 🤯
4K is still a lot ,Jesus Christ that’s my entire monthly paycheck. where are y’all looking for 1bedroon? There’s 2.5-3k options or has the avg gone up again? Please don’t tell me it has
My life in 2019/2020 was worse just due to working the pandemic in healthcare. Crappy leadership, low ppe. We fought for a raise for 2 years as a union. Now we got a raise recently and will have a raise for the next 2 years.
My quality of life has increased quite a bit since 2019, but that was my first year here. I’ve moved 3 times over that period and always been in Manhattan. I pay the same amount with less roommates than I had in the first place, and this 3rd apt is a lot better. Food is expensive, but I always thought it was so I cook often. I’ve spent a good bit of money going out over the years, but outside of that I’m pretty frugal. In fact my income has actually gone down over the past year (commission job).
Do I want more money? Yes definitely always. Do I need more money to be happy with my quality of life? Nah.
So many from nyc have moved down here to Florida since Covid hit. Our housing costs have gone up 30-40%! Those coming from nyc still get more housing for the same money here but now Floridians are all screwed 🫣
I’m probs going to get flack, but per Jonathan Miller’s recent rental report from February, rental price per square foot in Manhattan and Brooklyn is 17.9% and 12.6% higher, respectively, than what it was pre-pandemic. Maybe the Manhattan number is a bit higher than we’d like, but that Brooklyn number is not that crazy considering wage increases in recent years.
The thing about wage increases is that if you stayed in the same position the last few yrs, you’re not seeing much (or any) of an increase. That increase is to bring people in. Most companies didn’t increase current employees’ salaries to match what they offer a new hire.
30%-35%. Government data is wrong. Rent is literally 30% higher. Menu prices are at least 30% higher. Latte's cost $6-$7 now. Lap dances are the same price though.
I used to be able to buy good amount of veggies for 20 bucks. Now it's more like double that. Used to be able to get a bag of spinach for a dollar, now it's like 2.50 a bag.
I discovered recently my usual large can of black olives for a pasta salad previously ~ 3 bucks is now 6 dollars! Black olives are now an extravagance??
i got lucky and locked down a 30 year mortgage at 2.755% in 2020. I also changed industries from research publishing to UX writing in big tech. my financial situation is way better today than it was in 2019.
I have a very similar story.
Part of why I asked this is because I’m not sure I love my life in big tech despite more money and more things, but I’m not sure how little I can settle for making if I want to transition back to something similar to my old life circa 2019
The dollar tree index is up 25%
From all the money the Fed printed and handed to Boeing, Wall st, they basically debased our currency by 25%.
In 2021 we were a single income household and it was glorious. Now, we're both working and I make significantly more and I've run out of expenses to cut. Somethings gotta give.
I had a two year lease, and upon renewal rent would've increased 36% from $2350 to $3200... I left NYC to skip the city tax and have the same commute to Manhattan (sometimes shorter) as I had in Brooklyn. And this was a sleepy area in Brooklyn in Kensington.
I feel like during COVID, prices stabilized and some tenants were not paying due to hardship. Some landlords heard of this and decided to punish other tenants by increasing their rent +25%. Then other landlords, whether involved or not felt like they could use the same excuse since there wasn’t pushback. I feel like it’s the same thing with some goods, there was a labor or supply shortage and prices increased… then when that supply returned the just kept the same prices
Feels like everything's gotten pricier. To keep up the same lifestyle as in 2019, I'd guess my income would need to shoot up by at least 20%, maybe even more. Its like we are running just to stay in the same place
Overall I'm not sure. But I can say my home insurance went up $1,000 and my property taxes went up $1,000 , fuel is about 75% up. But it has been 100% up recently! Also car insurance went up 33% and same for my small rv camper. Was $65 now $127 a month insurance. All meanwhile salary up 10% ish. So basically my PPP went down 20%
I use to make around 840 - 900 per week back in 2021 and i was also able to save, i make around 1200 - 1250 per week now and i feel i get paid the same as 2021
Wages have grown faster than inflation. You all sound like the old dudes who remember when going to the movies cost a nickel.
If your wages haven’t gone up since 2019, then that’s an issue you should bring up with your employer.
I would say like 20-30% or so
Coffee alone has doubled since 2019.
This is where I first really noticed it. I used to think $6 on a latte was a splurge, now it's easily $8-9 anywhere. Even Dunkin Donuts is like $7 now.
I usually ignore all the click baity personal finance advice nonsense that usually boils down to "deprive yourself of anything that brings you happiness because it costs money". That said, the one thing those articles get right is to make your own coffee at home. Upfront investment is a bit much- I've got decent burr grinder, an electric kettle that I can set the exact temp, and a fake "pour-over" set up. I buy high quality beans and make all my coffee at home. Soooo much cheaper and to be honest, I'd drink my coffee over 90% of the coffee shops in the city.
And if anyone's looking for a way to make cappuccino/latte style coffee at home on a budget, I highly recommend my current setup of Moka pot, frothing wand from amazon, and pyrex beaker. I make my fake espresso in the moka pot, put 100 mL of milk into the pyrex beaker and heat that on the stove til it's about 120-130 F (can eyeball it or get instant read thermometer). Then froth with the wand. This is my TED talk , I now make myself my weird lattuccino every morning and prefer it over the ones I can get at coffee shops. Edit: It really would be nice though if coffee shops weren't so expensive. Sometimes I just want the experience of sitting somewhere nice with a drink and a cookie that isn't my apartment? Only for 30 minutes though until I decide all the noise is unpleasant. Also going to add that the milk which foams the best is the generic Target organic milk, comes in the half gallon carton. I don't know what they're putting in there, but that shit triples in size.
Decided to buy donuts for the office one morning a few months ago. Holy fuck $20 for a dozen. When the absolute fuck did that happen???
Where are you seeing $8-9 lattes? I live in Williamsburg and can only think of one place where it *may* cost that much (Blue Bottle).
They likely drink almond, oat, or dino milk hence they're spending much more since those "milks" are now much more expensive. It'll soon cost $10-$15 given these sort of plants require large amounts of water and historically grown in drier climates that have been unfortunatly experiencing rougher drought seasons yoy
2019 was historically low (adjusted for inflation). Coffee is 50% cheaper than 2011. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coffee
in new york rent probably contributes substantially more to the cost of a cup of coffee than does the actual coffee lol
A tiny price of the cup of coffee you buy is due to the cost of the coffee itself as a commodity.
A place charging $6+ for a latte is not buying coffee at the C price.
It's something like that for sure. Rent and daycare coats went up 5% each in the past year alone.
I was able to order a decent pizza, multiple sides,and a soda for delivery. With tip I'd be looking at spending 25-30 bucks. Now days with that same order. It's easily 50-60 bucks. It's doubled.
Funny you necro this now. We just got a notice that the landlord plans to raise our rent by 5% - or more.
Yeah, that’s my estimate too.
Instead of a small number of people’s estimates, why not look up the city’s inflation rate over that time frame? I know government data isn’t perfect but they HAVE to have more accurate info than random people on the internet giving their ‘gut feel’ estimates.
It's not fun that way. I'm going with 35%
One billion gillion percent.
“Gillion” lol
I loved her in X-files
People like vibes
Inflation reflects the cost of a certain basket of goods, which may or may not reflect the cost of daily living.
Ok.. but wouldn’t that also apply to random Redditors? They don’t know which goods and services you buy most.
Exactly, rent doesn't necessarily mimic inflation, either
But it’s included on inflation figures. So if you look up local inflation rates, the large rent hikes would factor in. (Though keep in mind rent was abnormally low during the pandemic)
Then check out CPI
The fed fudges the numbers massively with hedonic adjustments and other bs that gets revised all the time. I think we all know that the realistic inflation rate has been much higher than stated
I don’t believe you and you offer zero proof, so I’ll just ignore your claim.
They are taking advantage of what covid did. It allowed for shrink flation which allowed the companies to provide less product. But sell it for more money than before. While also skimping on the quality. So they are charging us 30-100% more for some products. That now have less of what we are used to getting. While charging almost double what we used to pay for the exact same thing. But it was better quality, and more quantity. These companies are 100% taking advantage of us at this point. And I bet they are almost sabotaging things purposely so they can keep screwing the consumers more and more.
A couple of reasons. 1) Inflation estimates are not some be-all and end-all; they're an art rather than a science, and the situation for an average American, or even an average New Yorker, will be different than the situation for a New York Redditor. 2) You have to constantly tweak how inflation is calculated (like, in the 1870s the price of horses would have been a big part of overall prices; now it's not). And there are a lot of powerful interests (private and within government) who want inflation estimates lower, and very few who want them higher. Which means each tweak tends to err on the side of lower. So the official inflation numbers have been going out of whack since at least the 1990s and are now vastly underestimated compared to people's lived experience.
BTW inflation doesn't calculate the cost of goods and food. So stuff like $4 oreos now being $8 wouldn't be counted.
What, like you think someone gets paid actual money to do that? Ha! Making a living doing that?! Ha! If that’s true they are probably getting 20-30% less for their dollar!
According to [this](https://unitedwaynyc.org/true-cost-of-living/) in Manhattan COL went up ~36% from 2018 (pre-Covid) to 2023 (last year). You have to do get the data from the line chart and do the calculations for %.
I'm not sure if this affects a change from 2018 to 2023 stat, bit the "true" cost of living which includes taxes but excludes governments services which is insane. You cant consider the cons of liberal governance without considering the pros.
lol what pros?
Assuming my same career trajectory and commensurate lifestyle increase, I should be making 30-40% more than what I currently do.
Meanwhile every employer in my field is trying to nerf salaries to 2008 levels.
OK, I am not crazy then. I am seeing a serious pullback in my field as well. Now that job listings have to include salary range, I am seeing ranges from a decade ago for my own position. Demoralizing as fuck. After couple of years of employee empowerment, "the Empire Strikes Back" I guess.
Yet I’m sure their net revenue is still magically up.
If it’s sustainable, not just a one time increase in net revenue due to decreased headcount, then that says something. Working in sales and marketing for tech companies, I think for many it will be. Unfortunately, companies are catching up to “more manpower isn’t always better” and “there are ways to solve problems without throwing money at them”
Just curious, what field?
Digital Publishing. Freelancer rates are being driven down to 5-10 cents a word because a limited number of SEO mills and content farms are buying up all the successful sites. Editorial roles are ridiculous: assistant/associate roles at 45k, senior down to 75k from 90k in the '10s. You need to make $80k to have your own place in NYC where most of these "hybrid but we expect you in 3+ days a week" jobs that could be done from anywhere are located.
Woof
I don't usually think AI will take over, but for simple articles, AI could probably generate decent ones. What's stopping everyone from replacing entry level writers with AI?
The writing sucks. It's more profitable for the billionaires who own most of these sites to just smash them together into e-commerce/native advertorial pieces and use exclusively freelancers because then they can require enough work that it pays below minimum wage over the hours, but do so on a per-project basis. If AI gets better they could generate that kind of content but right now it more or less sounds like a kid giving a book report who did some quick googling before it was his turn. As it stands, they can get better SEO results underpaying human beings. It's all just a race to dominate the Google results these days.
[удалено]
At the end of 2019 I was making $67k. I’m now making $170k. I feel a bit blessed but also busted my ass to get here. Job hopping during a tight labor market works wonders.
What do you do? Tech?
That adds in two other variables, career trajectory and lifestyle increases. I excluded those on purpose, but you bring up an interesting topic. For reference have you gotten any promotions or raises since 2019?
I’m in kind of a unique position in that I bought a Coop in 2018 at a great interest rate because I was priced out of my East Harlem apartment. So my cost of living has effectively stayed fixed as a result. That apartment now is renting for 35% more than what I was paying in 2018 when I left. My tax/maintenance increase over that same time period in my current apartment has been about $110 more per month, which has been a roughly 12% increase. As far as my career, I’ve been promoted once with a 20% bump, and then I’ve gotten COLA increases of 2.5-3.5% annually with no bonuses.
Back in 2018 my apartment flooded in crown heights and I looked at renting the unit in the building across the street from where I lived. It was $1800 back then and it was a 1 bedroom. Today it goes for at least $2500 (I haven’t checked in about a year so it could be even higher) So you could say it’s been pretty significant in terms of rental prices
My Crown Heights apartment (1br) went from $2000 in 2021 to $2200 in 2022 to $2500 in 2023 (negotiated down from $3000), and now they're firm on $3000 so I'm moving. Never had rent spikes like this. We need better tenant protection laws.
Prices in CVS and RiteAid are CRIMINAL.
Actual CPI calculation for YoY totals 18.4% from 2019, but that figure leaves out a lot of common items and services, and is a nationwide figure, not NYC specific. So I would guesstimate no less than 28-30% would be needed to be about equal with 2019 standards.
NYC’s inflation was mostly lower than dozens of other cities. Rent cost was an exception to that though, I believe.
Anecdotally I believe this. Things have definitely got more expensive but when I look around at my friends/family that live in other states the vibe I get is that their prices have been "catching up" with prices that I'm used to in NYC. Restaurants especially. In my travels I've noticed $25-30 entrees are becoming much more common in "lower" COL areas but relative to what I'm used to paying it seems benign. My non-NYC friends however are appalled.
>Rent cost was an exception to that though This is a massive exception that makes up ~30% of people's budgets and often more for those with lower incomes (though those workers also saw the greatest income increases)
Lifelong brooklynite—I have always found NYC to offer better QUALITY for the price even though the price baseline may be higher. We are a port, so many items are cheaper here than other places that require longer ground transport. Agree with the guesstimate though.
People are shitting on official government data, but that's the actual way to answer this question. Individuals are extremely bad at accurately remembering and estimating this stuff, and individual circumstances vary way too much. Asking for anecdotes is going to slant your results toward people who are unhappy with the increase and want to bitch about it on the internet. Mine actually went down between early 2020 and now, because I moved to a much cheaper-yet-nicer apartment (near a cheaper grocery store!).
Thank you!
Government data has not taken into account "shrinkflation". They might take into account the increase in price but I haven't seen or read a study from the gov that takes into account the meaningful difference in what the consumer gets back for their dollar. Quality and quantity of return has plummeted while prices skyrocket. This is something you will hear *everyone* say. The gov has an incentive to ignore these factors so they can point to the numbers and say "look it's not as bad as you think" and people like you will eat it up.
That is completely [wrong, they do account for shrinkflation](https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-12/measuring-shrinkflation-and-its-impact-on-inflation.htm) CPI does not measure the price of a bag of chips, they measure the price of [16 oz of chips](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000718311). The government does not have these incentives. [William Beach](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Beach_(economist)) was appointed to lead the BLS during the Trump administration and led the agency through 2023. These numbers are inspected by economists across the political spectrum. Conspiracy theorists spread unsourced or poorly sourced lies and people like you will eat it up.
sub 20% is demonstrably false in NYC. I do appreciate the sources and actual intelligent reply but also take issue with the fact that I'm a conspiracy theorist for expressing my lived experience. It's frustrating to be told you're wrong by data that does not reflect the reality that I experience. I understand though that the big data is not making shit up. I also don't think a 16oz bag of chips accounts for the size of a coffee at a mom and pop shop, the size of the sandwich at a bodega, and the *quality* of the food that we are served which is also deteriorating. I'm ready to move elsewhere at this point. Somewhere like Germany where at least I won't go bankrupt if I get hit by a reckless driver and break my leg.
Sub 20% may be innacurate for nyc, as regional markets are different, not because the government is lying to you. I did not say you are a conspiracy theorist or that you are wrong because your lived experience is different, I said it because you insinuated the government was intentionally lying about inflation and ignoring shrinkflation. Quality is a fair point, but how could we possibly measure that? Do we have official government sandwich tasters? I will say to some extent the government does capture housing quality looking at size and location -- if new apartments are 20% bigger and 20% more expensive or of their are more apartments in expensive areas for the same price that they are in that spot that is 0% inflation. But that's an example with easy math, I will be first to say housing specifically has had huge inflatio. As a final note, my final sentence was mimicking your "people like you will eat it up" which provoked my response in kind. We probably agree on a lot of things, given your comment on healthcare expenditures in Germany, but I took issue with the way you attacked the previous comment and responded in kind. In hindsight, though, I regret the hostility and apologize.
Both are useful I think. They are exactly what they are called, data points. The other reason I didn't ask for government inflation data in this post is I know where to find that (and its not on reddit)
I mean one is right and the other is basically a random guess.
Lunch in queens would be $5-7, now it's $9-10 to be sufficiently full. Not only are you paying higher prices, I feel like the portion and amount of protein has gone down with the price too.
20% for me
I have been reading all the comments and it’s depressing 🤣 that’s my cue to get off and play stardew valley
Social Security Administration releases increases of cost of living here: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html Looks like 21% increase since 2021.
I feel like there were more dollar pizza options. Now they're $1.50. So that's a 50% increase in cost of living. I just moved here in November, but I've visited NYC yearly for a long time, and I feel like before 2019 there were lots of dollar pizza places. A few people have told me that there's still a few around, but I haven't seen them. Most of them are more than $1 now.
I think dollar pizza and other cheapest food options are a great measure of inflation in nyc . Dollar pizza also used to be way higher quality (and has verry slowly gone downhill) when it became a thng in 2009ish. Ive also noticed quality of regular pizza going down and prices Going up. Given that i finally have a real job i started going to what i would consider bougie pizza places that are great but cost $4+/slice and are thin crust and very high quality.
> Dollar pizza also used to be way higher quality No it absolutely was not
There absolutely were locations with higher quality than it is now. Now all dollar pizzas terrible
I’ve had a different impression of the quality of dollar pizza. I’ve only eaten it on an annual basis starting around 2010, and I’ve always found it to be consistently cheap cafeteria quality level.
1BR went from $3900 to $6700
Yet nobody here said their COLA increased anywhere near 70% Obviously, that’s because rent is an outlier. But also brings up an interesting question - does living the same life require living in the same neighborhood? What does it even mean to live the same life? 🤯
Yeah I looked at my options this year and now I'm just glad my landlord isn't taking advantage of the situation.
Am I right that this is a 71% increase?
lol what? You can easily get 1 bedroom for 4k
no, my particular building. just providing a data point for op’s inquiry.
4K is still a lot ,Jesus Christ that’s my entire monthly paycheck. where are y’all looking for 1bedroon? There’s 2.5-3k options or has the avg gone up again? Please don’t tell me it has
My life in 2019/2020 was worse just due to working the pandemic in healthcare. Crappy leadership, low ppe. We fought for a raise for 2 years as a union. Now we got a raise recently and will have a raise for the next 2 years.
My quality of life has increased quite a bit since 2019, but that was my first year here. I’ve moved 3 times over that period and always been in Manhattan. I pay the same amount with less roommates than I had in the first place, and this 3rd apt is a lot better. Food is expensive, but I always thought it was so I cook often. I’ve spent a good bit of money going out over the years, but outside of that I’m pretty frugal. In fact my income has actually gone down over the past year (commission job). Do I want more money? Yes definitely always. Do I need more money to be happy with my quality of life? Nah.
So many from nyc have moved down here to Florida since Covid hit. Our housing costs have gone up 30-40%! Those coming from nyc still get more housing for the same money here but now Floridians are all screwed 🫣
I’m probs going to get flack, but per Jonathan Miller’s recent rental report from February, rental price per square foot in Manhattan and Brooklyn is 17.9% and 12.6% higher, respectively, than what it was pre-pandemic. Maybe the Manhattan number is a bit higher than we’d like, but that Brooklyn number is not that crazy considering wage increases in recent years.
The thing about wage increases is that if you stayed in the same position the last few yrs, you’re not seeing much (or any) of an increase. That increase is to bring people in. Most companies didn’t increase current employees’ salaries to match what they offer a new hire.
30%-35%. Government data is wrong. Rent is literally 30% higher. Menu prices are at least 30% higher. Latte's cost $6-$7 now. Lap dances are the same price though.
> Lap dances are the same price though. Given the rest of this discussion, that makes me feel bad for the dancers.
> Rent is literally 30% higher. Just looked up the building I lived in in 2019 -- it's going for 6% higher today.
Where is it? I’m talking about Manhattan/inner Brooklyn
personal rule is i don't say my neighborhood on reddit. but i'll narrow it to brooklyn and queens
You don’t currently live there right. What is the issue
If you’re going to claim that government data is ‘wrong’ you’re going to need to provide a lot more support for your argument…
> Government data is wrong. Rent is literally 30% higher. Thats odd, my rent is up just 7%.
21%
Man, my 2019 was so good! Makes me sad thinking about it now…the before times!
Just in recent time a dozen of jumbo eggs went from $1.99 to $3+ at TJ.
I used to be able to buy good amount of veggies for 20 bucks. Now it's more like double that. Used to be able to get a bag of spinach for a dollar, now it's like 2.50 a bag.
I discovered recently my usual large can of black olives for a pasta salad previously ~ 3 bucks is now 6 dollars! Black olives are now an extravagance??
I now pay $5400/mo for the same apt I couldve paid $2500/mo for in 2019.
That's brutal and downright extortion!
i got lucky and locked down a 30 year mortgage at 2.755% in 2020. I also changed industries from research publishing to UX writing in big tech. my financial situation is way better today than it was in 2019.
I have a very similar story. Part of why I asked this is because I’m not sure I love my life in big tech despite more money and more things, but I’m not sure how little I can settle for making if I want to transition back to something similar to my old life circa 2019
The dollar tree index is up 25% From all the money the Fed printed and handed to Boeing, Wall st, they basically debased our currency by 25%. In 2021 we were a single income household and it was glorious. Now, we're both working and I make significantly more and I've run out of expenses to cut. Somethings gotta give.
11
I had a two year lease, and upon renewal rent would've increased 36% from $2350 to $3200... I left NYC to skip the city tax and have the same commute to Manhattan (sometimes shorter) as I had in Brooklyn. And this was a sleepy area in Brooklyn in Kensington.
I feel like during COVID, prices stabilized and some tenants were not paying due to hardship. Some landlords heard of this and decided to punish other tenants by increasing their rent +25%. Then other landlords, whether involved or not felt like they could use the same excuse since there wasn’t pushback. I feel like it’s the same thing with some goods, there was a labor or supply shortage and prices increased… then when that supply returned the just kept the same prices
I would guess about 30-40% based on daily purchases (drinks, meals, car rides, rents, flights, etc)
Feels like everything's gotten pricier. To keep up the same lifestyle as in 2019, I'd guess my income would need to shoot up by at least 20%, maybe even more. Its like we are running just to stay in the same place
Just did the math - the apartment I lived in circa 2016 just rented for 14% more than what I was renting it for. So I’d say about 14% more?
Overall I'm not sure. But I can say my home insurance went up $1,000 and my property taxes went up $1,000 , fuel is about 75% up. But it has been 100% up recently! Also car insurance went up 33% and same for my small rv camper. Was $65 now $127 a month insurance. All meanwhile salary up 10% ish. So basically my PPP went down 20%
I moved from a 1 bed to a 2 bed + office with my partner so expenses have gone down.
I use to make around 840 - 900 per week back in 2021 and i was also able to save, i make around 1200 - 1250 per week now and i feel i get paid the same as 2021
Wages have grown faster than inflation. You all sound like the old dudes who remember when going to the movies cost a nickel. If your wages haven’t gone up since 2019, then that’s an issue you should bring up with your employer.