Social Issues Volume 2 Issue 1 August-September 2022

Inflation 

By

Myrah Ricketts

Photo by Pexels

As an American, you already know that inflation makes prices go up, but do you really understand how it affects citizens all over America? To better understand this, you will have to know how inflation starts in the first place, what it is, and how it affects Americans.

Inflation starts because prices rise over time, so the worth of your money slowly falls but it also varies from the state of the economy to the cost of living in your area. When your money isn’t worth as much, you will have to pay more money for even smaller things, like how your hair brush may have been $1.45 last month, now it would be $1.59 this month. (The inflation rate is 9.1% as of July 2022, so this would be true.)

Inflation is not just something that is now happening. It is just a way to describe how prices go up and how fast. It is simply the measurement in which prices for goods and services rise over a certain amount of time. As the economy grows, businesses and consumers spend more money on goods and services. The demand for these goods and services typically over-does the supply of goods, so producers can raise their prices.

Although there is no easy way to avoid it, having such a high inflation rate is very devastating for the citizens in America because people who are at the top of the buyer chain can and will raise their prices making it extremely hard for anyone who wants to start their own business, work for small companies, or just be financially stable when becoming an adult. Imagine for a moment you are a middle class household. But one day you go to pay your bills and see they have raised in price, then when you go to fill your gas and you see the price for a gallon has gone up dramatically, you realize just how much four dollars add up. That is how inflation affects all of us rich or poor. And it is especially bad for everyone regardless of your economic status.