Will the cost of living ever go down?

or will it keep going up?

It's gone down before in the early 1900s and some during the 70s. It's generaly considered bad if the cost of living goes down because deflation is bad for the economy. It means that people will hold onto dollar and not spend. An economy where nothing is happening will tend to sink deeper and deeper.

The goal of the Federal Reserve is to keep a small amount of inflation every year. Obviously, if inflation is too high, that's not so great for the country either.

A long and severe recession could drive down the cost of living. It happened in Japan in the 1990's, so it's naive to think it can never happen in the US.

No. It will always go up. Do You want to Lower Your Income? Do You know anyone that wants to Lower Their Income?

Middle Class america is steadily disappearing. so yes.

i dont know seems like we are living better

The cost of basic necessities like medical care, food and gasoline will continue to rise while the cost of entertainment objects like books, DVDs, and movies will eventually fall.

Majority says No... I don't think I'll see it go down in my lifetime.

And employers will try their best to not increase employee salaries.

Here in America, Americans need to stop depending on day jobs and learn how to start, own and manage their own businesses.

There are many foreigners who come to America and can not speak the language but start, manage and own businesses. They see that it is the smartest step to take.

Salaries are not keeping up with the cost of living.

How many companies give each employee a pay raise every time the price of gas go up? You use your car to get to work? Did your boss give you a pay raise this week? The price of gas went up?

Most wealthy people are business owners. How many rich employees do you know?

The cost of living will always go up and the rich (business owners) will continue to stay rich and the poor and middle class (consumers) will get poorer.

Miss Wealth Builder

http://www.MyWebsiteBusinessTrainer.com

Yeah...hold your breath!

no not really population will inflate cost of the american dollar will become nothing nope. cost of living will increase evry minute of the day.

Up,Up,Up,Sky Rocket!

The cost of living will continue to increase, everything is more expensive. The question is...will your income increase with the costs?

I sold my house for more than I paid for it, that was two years ago. Today, I could not afford that house. If you could stay ahead of inflation, then you would be doing fine.

The Formula for Calculating Inflation
The formula for calculating the Inflation Rate using the Consumer Price Index is relatively simple. Every month the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) surveys prices and generates the current Consumer Price Index (CPI). Let us assume for the sake of simplicity that the index consists of one item and that one item cost $1.00 in 1984. The BLS published the index in 1984 at 100. If today that same item costs $1.85 the index would stand at 185.0

By looking at the above example, common sense would tell us that the index increased (it went from 100 to 185). The question is how much has it increased? To calculate the change we would take the second number (185) and subtract the first number (100). The result would be 85. So we know that since 1984 prices increased (Inflated) by 85 points.

What good does knowing that it moved 85 do? Not much. We still need a method of comparison.

Since we know the increase in the Consumer Price Index we still need to compare it to something, so we compare it to the price it started at (100). We do that by dividing the increase by the first price or 85/100. the result is (.85). This number is still not very useful so we convert it into a percent. To do that we multiply by 100 and add a % symbol.

So the result is an 85% increase in prices since 1984. That is interesting but (other than being the date of George Orwell's famous novel) to most people today 1984 is not particularly significant.

calculating a specific Inflation Rate
Normally, we want to know how much prices have increased since last year, or since we bought our house, or perhaps how much prices will increase by the time we retire or our kids go to college.

Fortunately, The method of calculating Inflation is the same, no matter what time period we desire. We just substitute a different value for the first one. So if we want to know how much prices have increased over the last 12 months (the commonly published inflation rate number) we would subtract last year's index from the current index and divide by last year's number and multiply the result by 100 and add a % sign.

The formula for calculating the Inflation Rate looks like this:

((B - A)/A)*100

So if exactly one year ago the Consumer Price Index was 178 and today the CPI is 185, then the calculations would look like this:

((185-178)/178)*100
or
(7/178)*100
or
0.0393*100

which equals 3.93% inflation over the sample year.

There is a chance that real estate values could fall in the near future, at least in over inflated areas, like where I live. This would make a large impact on the cost of living, since housing is our main expense. However, they will eventually rise again, so if it happens, enjoy it while it lasts.

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