You're making a very big leap in assuming I don't condemn the Democrats and their attempt to convince voters everything is fine.

They're a party led by geriatric, upper-class rulers. No shit, their doubling down on "the economy is fine" didn't work—they don't understand or care to understand what the people want. All they care about is what their corporate donors pay them to care about.

The failings of the Democrat Party don't absolve rural conservatives and undereducated voters of their part in this, though. The literal definition of economy is the wealth and resources of a country as a whole. The economy was doing fine because we had our lovely billionaires and mega corporations consolidating all the wealth and skewing that number while the average person was under growing financial pressure.

The problem was—and still is—the wealth disparity. We have multimillionaires and billionaires absorbing more and more money from the 99% while paying a pittance back towards helping the people they're screwing. They get to dodge taxes by reinvesting their profits into assets they own, hoard resources, and act with impunity.

A voter base that took the time to understand what they were asking for would have seen straight through Trump's sensationalist bullshit, not barreled straight into it. It should have been obvious that he wasn't going to fix wealth disparity. He associates himself with the billionaires, he sees himself as one of them, and he wants to keep it that way. He doesn't give a single shit about wealth disparity, let alone ever acknowledge it as the problem. Instead, he won his campaign on vague promises about a word that means something completely different to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that cast their ballot for him.

Raising wages with inflation can also cause issues as it can at times solidify the inflation that's happened because now the cheapest thing to make now costs more to make such means people need more money to buy things.

Which is why whenever minimum wage increases it didn't seem to actually fix anything, it just keeps the status quo where the working class are struggling, kept at the point of struggle. It's like financial edging.

The issue that needs to actually get solved is for the rich to be less likely to hoard wealth and to stop paying c-suites exorbitant salaries, and actually being hard as fuck on their proposed taxes instead of letting them dodge it.

I don't have any expectations, nor do I care if I understand inflation. If i get a higher paying job, i will be ahead of the inflation.

I don't care what my current employer pays me, I do not negotiate. if i have to negotiate a higher salary with current employer i see that as evidence that my current employer being incompetent and not doing his job. This is ground for dismissal. So I find and move to a new company that pays my expected salary.

End of the day, my purchasing power must remain the same or increase.

So I just find a higher paying job that accepts my higher expected salary, fire my current boss, and move to the new job. It is not rocket science. It is just business, nothing personal. My service is a product, and its value rises with inflation.

In fact the moment I start any job i start looking for the next one. In this way I am always trying to upgrade my skill so that I can get the next job.

Don't be loyal to your boss because they will never be loyal to you.

hcol does not equal how well the economy is doing, is due to much different factors.