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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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"Real Hourly Compensation for All Workers" does not attempt to capture every possible thing in society that affects peoples finances, no.

(Though increases in cost of education will be reflected in the inflation, and as such adjusted for. Also the cost of the minimum viable laptop and smartphone required for getting a job is comparatively very low, and people get them anyway even if they weren't required – even the homeless have phones!)

A mandatory four year period of large debt and fewer working hours is a serious cost on the median citizen and I’m skeptical this is actually conveyed in the inflation metric. Because you can’t just take “tuition increased by this amount”, you also have to measure the fact that it’s required for more workers who may otherwise have forgone it completely