Inflation Does The Public Understand It?

The word inflation is meaningless to masses who work two jobs in order to make ends meet and to shoppers who study drugstore and food coupons religiously.

We get irritated at the grocery store when the person in front sorts out coupons at the cashier or spreads out the flyer with the weekly specials. Try asking him about inflation. Does he know what it is?

The media is dead, so there are no random street interviews about inflation. What exactly does it mean? Ordinary people might know that it relates to money, but might not know how it affects them.

Inflation is a word from high finance, very difficult to grasp, like interest rates and GDP. Rich people understand inflation because it affects what they have in the bank, or what stockbrokers are cruising for them.

We cannot even talk about banks. How many people have $500 in their savings account?. Depending on when they are paid, their wages or salaries stay in the bank for two days, before the landlord siphons off the rent and the used car dealership takes the monthly instalment.

Inflation seems to be bad news, from what poor people hear on TV. They don’t understand what the big deal is because certain things are never explained to them. The landlord has a right to push up the rent every year. The price of bread and cereal goes up every time their backs are turned, but their wages have remained the same for the past three years.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.