“The inflation tax, while largely ignored, hurts middle-class and low-income Americans the most,” Ron Paul wrote back in 2006, concluding that “Federal spending, deficits, and Federal Reserve mischief hurt the poor while transferring wealth to the already rich.” A friend of mine from Venezuela told me an extreme example of how inflation transfers wealth, which I’ve told before. This Venezuelan saved up a down payment and bought a home for about 300,000 Bolivars in 2007 (roughly $25,000). After five years of payments, he still owed far more than half the principal, but his monthly payments...

If you are middle class and lately feel like you're not getting ahead, you're not wrong. The economic facts bear this out. The middle class household is taking home about the same in inflation-adjusted dollars after taxes today compared to their income in 1971. According to the U.S. Census, in 1971 the median household income (the households in the 50th percentile, the middle-est of the middle class) was $9,030. Adjusted for inflation using Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers for the Consumer Price Index, that's $67,394.56 in December 2023 dollars purchasing power. By 2023 that median...