I find it interesting to look at this graph against Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
First layer, shelter and food, have increased almost perfectly in line with wages. That's reasonable.
Second layer, security - including healthcare in the US - "feels like it’s experienced hyperinflation", according to the author. And, as you age, your healthcare needs increase.
So if you're low in this hierarchy, being relatively poor, then inflation might feel much more punishing to you.
As a poor person, you might have experienced inflation as averaging 6% over these 20 years, even if the underlying figure averages 2%.
You can also make almost the opposite point. We used to spend a lot on basic needs like food and shelter, 3/4 of the average income on food, and more money on bread alone than on housing (IIRC, 19thC rich countries). As growth/technology made these cheaper, or if you prefer, made us so rich that they can be had for a tiny fraction of our income, we spend it on other things.
Many of these are status competitions -- it's the location of your house that's expensive, not the drywall, and that's an auction against others who also want it. Education in these graphs is arguably like that too -- what's expensive is a top name, rare connections; the actual knowledge is very close to free.
Healthcare isn't a status competition. But it does increasingly seem like it's possible to spend an unlimited amount of money on it -- why not try a million-dollar cancer treatment if you can (somehow) afford it? None existed in Maslow's time partly because the science hadn't advanced, but also because there were too few potential customers. As a society, it isn't crazy to think that this should be a growing proportion of what we buy. If you think it should be a decreasing slice of the pie, then what exactly should be increasing, over the next 50 years? (Although obviously I'm aware of the ways in which how we buy it is deeply broken.)
According to [1], the average cost of education has risen significantly faster than the CPI, not only the cost of top name universities with rare connections.
> [Since 2001], in-state tuition and fees at public National Universities have grown the most, increasing 212%.
while
> The total consumer price index inflation increased by around 50% from August 2000 to August 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I guess I do think people paying for education are trying to buy something other than knowledge, even when it's not the ivy league. Perhaps more like trying to buy a position in society, an entry to a respectable white-collar career.
That would be why (in this theory of mine) it hasn't been disrupted by technology. The ability to impart knowledge to lots of people, in a way which was once only possible by gathering them in a room with a teacher, has indeed become cheap. But, as you say, this has not placed pressure on college tuition, as would happen in a more normal industry, which was actually selling what it says it's selling.
> Second layer, security - including healthcare in the US - "feels like it’s experienced hyperinflation", according to the author.
Not just the US. From 2000 to 2018, US healthcare costs went up by a factor of 2.3. Germany went up by 2.1, France 1.8, Canada 2.0, Italy 1.7, Japan 2.6, and UK 2.6. It's similar for most other OECD countries, and also similar if you expand the range to 1970-2018. My data source doesn't go back farther than 1970.
Here's a comment from a while back with a source for those numbers [1].
The US has two problems with health care costs. (1) we pay a lot more than nearly anyone else per capita, and (2) the cost is going up in an unsustainable manner.
The first problem is mostly just a US problem, but the second is a problem for everyone. This suggests that the first problem is due to something the US is doing wrong and could fix. The second problem, though, seems to be one that nobody has figured out.
In 2009 the price of a colchicine prescription went from $ 4.00 a month to $ 360.00 a month. But I don't think it registered in the inflation statistics.
(The last time I got some it was handled by my mandatory obamacare insurance... which means it cost the insurance company 240 and me a 160.00 copay. Yay high deductables.)
First layer, shelter and food, have increased almost perfectly in line with wages. That's reasonable.
Second layer, security - including healthcare in the US - "feels like it’s experienced hyperinflation", according to the author. And, as you age, your healthcare needs increase.
So if you're low in this hierarchy, being relatively poor, then inflation might feel much more punishing to you.
As a poor person, you might have experienced inflation as averaging 6% over these 20 years, even if the underlying figure averages 2%.