INFLATION

What groceries and essentials actually cost from 2019 through 2025, how paychecks did and didn't keep up, and where the extra money ended up. Rebased price indices, a working-family food-budget breakdown, corporate-profit "sellers' inflation" charts, and a long-form report with full sources.

• > Seven theme-reactive Observable Plot charts, each with an sr-only fallback table
• > CPI-vs-wages, grocery basket, energy prices, and profit-share views
• > Research package (CSVs + report) is the source of truth, synced into the build

> what it does

INFLATION tells the 2019–2025 cost-of-living story from a working family’s vantage: what groceries and essentials actually cost, how paychecks did and didn’t keep up, and where the bulk of the extra money ended up. Same public-interest spirit as SPENDING and FARM — a long-form report wired to charts, backed by downloadable CSVs.

> how to read it

• >Indices are rebased to 2019 = 100 — every chart says so.
• >The squeeze is in timing (the 2021–22 real-wage dip), essentials (food, rent, energy, insurance outran wages), and distribution — not a blanket “wages didn’t keep up.”
• >Every chart carries a source label; 2025 figures are preliminary.

Live at https://inflation.blackmesalabs.org.