Think of it as Yoga for the brain, we are going to stretch a bit.
If You’re Making More Money Than Ever,
Why Does It Feel Like You’re Falling Behind?
"Track burgers, poor man's gold, not headlines. They tell you what your labor is really worth.” -- YNOT!
Back in 1980, when I was in high school, I worked at Burger King. I made $3.50 an hour, just above minimum wage. A Whopper was under a dollar — but let’s call it $1 for simple math.
That meant I had to work about 20 minutes to earn one Whopper.
Fast forward to today. A Whopper is around $8 in many places.
If the same 20-minutes-of-work relationship held true, you’d need to earn about: $27 per hour
Because: $8 burger >> 20 minutes = 1/3 of an hour >>> $8 × 3 = $24 (and in many markets closer to $27 depending on pricing and taxes)
At $27/hour, working a traditional 40-hour week, you’d earn: $56,160 per year
Now ask yourself: Are most people working at your local Burger King making $27 an hour? Highly unlikely.
And here’s the kicker: AI and automation are replacing many of these jobs — or lowering the skill threshold even further. Self-ordering kiosks. Automated fryers. Drive-through AI. Fewer humans needed.
So what changed? It’s not just burger prices. It’s purchasing power.
The real question isn’t: “Why is the Whopper $8?”
The real question is: “Why doesn’t 20 minutes of work buy what it used to?”
Let’s talk about purchasing power. We are earning more dollars than any generation before us. And yet somehow, we feel poorer.
That’s not an income problem. That’s a purchasing power problem.
Income is what hits your bank account. Purchasing power is what that money actually does once it gets there. And lately, it doesn’t do much. It walks into a grocery store confident and walks out humbled.
Inflation is the polite word. Currency debasement is the technical one. But the honest translation is simple: the dollar buys less because there are more of them floating around than there should be.
Governments spend more than they collect. They borrow. When borrowing balloons, money expands. When money expands faster than productivity, prices adjust. Not because stores are evil. Because math is undefeated.
That’s how you get a $15 hamburger at Burger King.
We’ve all played a role in this — personally and collectively. We financed houses, cars, lifestyles, and governments on debt. Debt expands. Money supply expands. Prices follow. There’s nothing mystical about it. It’s accounting wearing a Halloween mask.
Now here’s the part that separates spectators from players.
The wealthy don’t sit on piles of cash. They own assets. Businesses. Land. Commodities. Equities. Things that tend to move with inflation — or at least resist it. The average worker earns dollars and saves dollars. That’s like storing ice cubes in the sun and being surprised when the water level drops.
And when inflation hurts, what do we do? We vote for programs to “fix” it. More spending. More subsidies. More relief checks. Which is like trying to put out a grease fire with gasoline.
There was a time when one income could cover a house, a car, food, kids, and even a modest vacation — on less than $200 a week. It wasn’t glamorous. But it worked.
What changed?
Government got bigger. Regulation got thicker. Deficits became permanent. Since the 1970s, the monetary spigot has rarely closed for long. Now interest on the national debt is one of the largest items in the federal budget. When debt becomes structural, printing becomes political necessity.
And when printing becomes permanent, inflation becomes structural.
This isn’t about complaining. It’s about clarity.
The issue isn’t that you don’t make enough money. The issue is that money itself doesn’t hold still anymore.
Own things that hold value. Not just the paper that forgets how.
And maybe the quiet question isn’t, “How do I earn more dollars?”
Maybe it’s, “Why am I trusting something designed to shrink?”
