, Columnist
Inflation Inequality Creates Winners and Losers
Technological progress is making life cheaper — but mostly for people who like new stuff.
Traffic is horrible, but at least the Wi-Fi is free.
Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
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Do the poor suffer more from inflation than the rich? Recent reports to the contrary, the numbers are not complete enough to answer that question in a simple way. What’s clear is that diverging rates of price inflation are creating distinct winners and losers.
Because the U.S. tech sector has advanced so much while many other parts of the economy have been relatively sluggish, the benefits from progress are now quite concentrated, though not in a way directly related to income. Rather, they accrue to people with a taste for a particular kind of novelty.