Howard Pyle, The Burning of Jamestown, an early-twentieth-century illustration, not an eyewitness view. Public domain.
In 2021 and 2022 prices rose fast enough to become the main economic fact in the country.
If money is tight, the receipt is the statistic, and a raise that arrives late is a raise that already lost.
If you are in the middle, rent, groceries, gasoline, and a used car can all move against a budget that used to work.
If you have savings, cash is the asset that shrinks, and a house you already own is the one that seems to win.
Reopening after the shutdown ran into broken supply lines, strong demand from the relief years, and an energy shock when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Groceries, rent, fuel, and used cars all took part.
A pay raise that looked decent on a stub could still lose to the total at the register.
Source: Public record of the 2021-22 inflation and of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.