MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle: 'Dirty Little Secret' About Inflation Is People Can Afford It

NBC News senior business correspondent and MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle said Sunday on “Today” that the “dirty little secret” about soaring inflation was, on average, people have the money to pay more for goods.

Ruhle said, “Nobody knows exactly when they’re going down, but you have to put all this in perspective. This inflation is not in isolation, and the government predicted it was going to be a challenging recovery, recovery all tied to Covid. So it’s why you see things like that expanded child tax credit. You’ve got the families of over 60 million kids, on average, getting $430 a month. For people on fixed incomes, older people on social security, they’re getting those fixed payments adjusted next year up 5.9% for inflation.”

She continued, “And the dirty little secret here, while nobody likes to pay more, on average we have the money to do so. Household savings hit a record high over the pandemic. We didn’t really have anywhere to go out and spend. And as we said a moment ago, we’re expecting retail sales this holiday season to break records. For those who own their homes, the value of our homes are up. While the stock market isn’t the economy, you have over half of American households with some investment in the markets and they hit market highs.”

Ruhle added, “So we need to put all of this in perspective. This time last year when you and I were talking nobody had a vaccine. Now 200 million Americans do, and we’re seeing this push of demand and that’s pushing up pricing.”

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