Bagel Inflation

9 years ago, in 2014, I could get a dozen bagels at Bruegger's for $6.99. Today, I am paying 14.49, including the $1 tip that didn't used to exist (at least not for me, especially paying by card). So one could say that the price has doubled in less than a decade, which seems economically shocking.

But it is intellectual malpractice to compare prices across time without factoring in the CPI. Adjust for CPI, I was actually paying $9.03 Still, that is 60% excess inflation. Granted, that was using the $2 off per dozen they had every Wednesday, since discontinued. Ignoring that, we are down to 25% excess inflation. If we also remove the tip, down to 16% excess inflation. Still quite a bit, no matter how you slice it.

Decreased Family Size & Social Class Concentration

From a purely statistical point of view, smaller family sizes decrease the likelihood of having close relatives who fall into more economically disadvantaged status. For instance, in a middle-class family of 6 siblings, it is not hard to imagine that 1 or 2 might, for various reasons, wind up experiencing substantially lower standards of living. This might tend to create empathy in more well-off layers of society, since they have close experience of those in a less-advantaged economic class.

In a family of 2 siblings, the statistics are greatly reduced. Then on top of that, there is the generational wealth factor. A comfortable family will be able to deploy more resources to help prevent or assist a child who might be in danger of slipping economically.