Voting For Your Wallet

“How can you get ‘involved’ in a way that impacts your wallet?”

If you’re just making ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck, it does not have to be that way. While the US has always been a capitalist economic system, there was a time when wages were closer to the cost of living. There was a time where our officials had the gaps between cost of living, wages, and inflation on their radar. Now, that gap is further than it’s ever been.

According to the Harvard Business Review, inflation is when prices rise across an economy — when your dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to. HBR mentions there can be a variety of causes; however, as former Fed chair Ben Bernanke put it — it boils down to when the aggregate quantity of goods demanded at a particular price is higher than the available quantity of goods at that price level. Basically, many Americans want a certain amount of bread at a certain price, and there’s only so much bread in the country available at that price, so eventually their ‘want’ for bread at that price exceeds what’s available, and the price goes up.

But it’s not just bread — it’s a a lot of things and it goes up across the country and irrespective of what you make and can afford for living costs. And while inflation is rising, it isn’t matching minimum wage or unemployment standards.

If you’ve ever been unemployed, you’ve wondered how the unemployment formula, which doesn’t account for inflation, can meet your basic needs, while searching for the job that will then have an income that sustains you. Similarly, if minimum wage doesn’t account for inflation, even employed people cannot meet their basic needs. Not increasing wages in conjunction with inflation leads to American working class debt, disenfranchisement, and homelessness.

So all this sounds theoretical, and even if it’s really happening, how is it even close to me in any way?

Well, labor regulations, minimum wage, unemployment, and your national, state, and local budgets are ALL impacted by inflation.

So you might be asking yourself, how can you get ‘involved’ in a way that impacts your wallet? How does anything I do make a difference?

Pinion wants to improve the lives of working class people through civic engagement that leads to better policy for everyone. Making your voice heard with the swipe of a touch screen or the click of a mouse. And with enough of our voices heard — our representatives will have to translate their listening to action.

Every time you vote on Pinion for a spending bill, minimum wage, price gouging, housing, healthcare, anything that affects the cost of living, you are sending a reminder to your representatives: I’m still here, and this gap keeps widening for me and my family. If you don’t take my cost of living into account, I won’t take you into account when I go to the voting booth.

Get Engaged!