Rising food and energy prices have received a lot of media attention lately, along with concerns about the threat of inflation. The chart above (using BLS data via

Economagic

) shows a sample of products that have experienced significant deflation in the last ten years (as well as deflation in the last few years in almost all cases), double-digit percentage decreases in all cases except for new cars (-3.4%).

Then considering that average hourly earnings have increased by almolst 40% over the last ten years, the real prices of those products have fallen by an even greater amount, a HUGE amount. In other words, there are many, many products like computers, cameras, new cars, clothing, TVs, appliances, electronics, software, etc. that are significantly cheaper today than ten years ago, especially after adjusting for increases in earnings.

