Prices always go up. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. We can slow it, but it's a fool's errand to make them go down. When I was a kid, I could get an ice cream cone for a 50 cents. That's never coming back.
Now that we've slowed inflation to a manageable level, we need to grow wages to catch up. I never heard a good plan on that from either side.
Wages generally kept track with inflation since before covid: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
I really don't understand the dynamic here.
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There's a reason the term "deflation" exists, and it's not simply a theoretical concept. Constant inflation is a political choice, entirely so in the age of fiat currency, whatever you think of it.
The reason you never hear a good plan for growing wages to catch inflation is because inflation is a form of intentionally regressive taxation. For reasons of macroeconomic theories meeting special interests with socio-political leverage.
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Deflation isn't necessarily a problem. Prices for some things like computers and consumer electronics are constantly deflating. Compare the price of a large HDTV today versus 20 years ago. Or do the same with rechargeable batteries or solar panels, etc. Of course much of that deflation was driven by economies of scale in Asian manufacturing hubs and we can argue about whether that's a good thing, but the deflation itself was good.
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