Yellen: Record Credit Card Spending For Survival… A Normalization Rather Than A Disturbing New Trend

‘So wages have gone up considerably, and that’s more than offset, for the typical household, the impact of higher prices.’
Lawrence: "But it does seem like prices are higher than when President Biden came into office. What do you say to the family that’s having to use their credit card to pay for food or possibly could lose their home because of debt that they have accumulated with the higher prices?"
Yellen: "Well, I think the single most important metric to judge how households are doing is their spending power, their real wages or real earnings, namely their earnings adjusted for inflation. And the statistic that I think captures things best is, if we compare it where the median worker is now as compared to 2019, just before the pandemic, that worker can buy the same bundle of goods as before, with $1400 left over to save or spend, so wages have gone up considerably, and that’s more than offset, for the typical household, the impact of higher prices."