Things haven’t been going so well for Jeep, and the solution for now involves price cuts. The Detroit News reports that Jeep is adding $3,000 worth of stuff to the Wrangler and Gladiator, slashing Gladiator pricing by $1,700, cutting $2,500 off the MSRP of a Compass, and chopping up to $4,000 off the price of a Grand Cherokee. As Jeep boss Antonio Filosa said at a media roundtable: “We need to do something on market penetration and market share, because it’s not where this brand deserves to be.”
So, how did this happen? Well, it all seemingly comes down to one thing — the Jeeps are too damn expensive — but there are facets to this story. This wave of price cuts comes after an upmarket push for the Jeep brand that was supposed to be fueled by a sales tailwind that ended up running out of steam. It’s a cautionary tale, and one that other automakers could stand to learn a lesson from.
Following the bankruptcy of Chrysler, Jeep was primed to be the company’s recovery season meal ticket. The brand had devoted fans, an iconic image, and historical proof of scalability through models like the Grand Cherokee. By the end of 2016, vehicles like the Wrangler, Compass, and Renegade helped Jeep shift 865,028 vehicles off American dealer lots — an all-time high. In 2018, Jeep hit another all-time high of 973,200 SUVs and crossovers sold in America. However, this rise could only last so long. In 2023, Jeep sold 642,294 vehicles in America, six percent fewer vehicles than it sold in 2022. That’s right, fewer vehicles than it sold during a year when the whole car industry was battling shortages, which suggests this sales slump isn’t due to supply issues. So what the hell happened?
Let’s start with the obvious factor of price hikes. Throughout the 2010s, Jeep repositioned itself from plucky maker of utility vehicles to every marketer’s favorite word salad — a premium lifestyle brand. The Patriot was a dirt-cheap box on wheels based on economy car mechanicals. The Jeep Renegade was also a box on wheels based on economy car mechanicals, but it saw some serious price creep over the years.
In 2018, the Fiat-based Renegade carried a base MSRP of $18,750, and you could get the CUV spec’d with the mid-range Latitude 4WD trim for $23,595 plus freight. Just two years later, in 2020, the base Renegade had a starting MSRP of $22,375, and the Latitude 4WD trim carried an MSRP of $25,895. In 2023, a shrinking lineup meant the base-model Renegade started at $29,445 including a $1,595 freight charge, which might help explain why Jeep had a 753-day supply of them back in June. Keep in mind, the Renegade was Jeep’s entry-level product, and general price hikes were happening across the board.
Those price hikes were often a combination of product-repositioning and inflating biting back. In 2018, the then-new JL Wrangler started at $28,190 including freight, or $3,100 more than a base 2017 JK Wrangler. By 2023, that figure was up to $33,090. That last figure is cheaper than adjusting the 2018 model’s pricing for inflation, but inflation doesn’t explain the $3,100 price hike that accompanied the 2018 redesign. Of course, when Jeep launched the 2018 Wrangler, it didn’t have high interest rates or considerable competition to contend with, and not all models got that lucky.
Oh, Wagoneer. What ever will we do with you? Look, hindsight may be 20:20, but 2021 was not the most ideal time to release 6,000 pounds of luxury SUV beef. Gas prices were on their way up, inflation fears ran high, and if you wanted a massive luxury SUV that could be spec’d into six-figures, the freshly redesigned Cadillac Escalade was an established name that could be had with an economical diesel engine. In 2022, its first full year on the market, 47,955 Wagoneers and Grand Wagoneers found homes in America; for 2023, that number dropped to 39,767.
That brings us nicely to the second factor: competition. For years, Jeep didn’t really have any direct competition for its halo product in America. That all changed when the reborn Ford Bronco started proudly touting the on-road benefits of independent front suspension. At the same time, the Grand Cherokee is going up against a number of extremely competent luxury SUVs like the Genesis GV80, the Grand Wagoneer is trying to fight the Escalade, the Gladiator can only claw so much ground from the Toyota Tacoma, and the Compass is flat-out uncompetitive.
Finally, there’s the simple fact that cheap credit has simply dried up. The average new car interest rate for prime borrowers in December, as reported by CNN, was 6.88 percent. Financing’s expensive, and leasing is no longer financially attractive in most cases, so it’s reasonable to expect customers to shy away from models on which options pile up quickly. What’s more, people are being squeezed on all fronts with more expensive housing, more expensive groceries, and generally more expensive lives, and cars are a place in which spending can be cut. Going off of census and inflation data, there was a $4,065 gap between inflation-adjusted 2019 median household income and actual 2022 median household income, and nothing suggests that gap is narrowing, or even holding.
The decline of Jeep sales suggests that not every brand can sustain a premium push. As vehicles grow more expensive, some customers will just say no. They’ll take their business elsewhere, because elsewhere offers something they can afford. Judging by the Chevrolet Trax quickly becoming Chevrolet’s third-best-selling vehicle, and compact cars like the Honda Civic still holding their own, affordability is hugely desirable in today’s new car landscape. Don’t lose sight of the masses while chasing the few.
(Photo credits: Jeep)
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And Stellantis has steadily raised prices faster than inflation for 5 years. No surprise. Want 21.5% off msrp? Yup- now is the time, they’re begging you to buy. My how fast markups went to markdowns and the salespeople are really hungry.
Jeep Pricing has definitely gotten out of control. We bought a Grand Cherokee in 2022 which as equipped had a 53k msrp and an OTD price with discounts of 47k with 1.75% financing. 2 years later today if you build the exact same spec vehicle it has gone up $5k and of course you are looking at abysmal financing rates. We put $12K down and the payment is still a little high for my liking, I hate to think what that payment would be now.
Jeep and Stellantis in general needs to come down off the Covid price high if they want to stay competitive.
> In 2018, Jeep hit another all-time high of 973,200 SUVs and crossovers sold in America
I find that mind blowing. They have no business selling so many crap tankers.
This. Is peak Autopian – and why I am here.
Love the article X Love the comments.
We bought a new Wrangler Sahara 4xe six months ago. It’s beautiful, but the MSRP was $68k before the tax rebate. It’s gorgeous, but buying that made me unwilling to stomach the payment on the new Grand Cherokee L I wanted for myself. I bought an Explorer instead. All customers have a budget, and Jeep is pushing its retail boundaries.
Good… it’s about time they started dropping MSRPs on Jeeps from the fantasy level that suggested they thought pandemic pricing would last forever.
But in my view, they are still overpriced and more price drops need to come.
When I went on Jeep.ca, I still see the old Renegade “starting at $38,090”
And to me that means it’s overpriced by at least CAD$10,000.
For CAD$38K, it should have the 4XE hybrid system included in the price.
And they should also bring back a cheaper FWD version with a manual transmission like they used to have.
For those of us that kind of wish Jimny was available stateside, I feel the Renegade would be fine if it were more of a baby Wrangler, and less a Chrysler 200 with a Boxy Body.
Here’s an idea – don’t make people looking for an off-road capable rig get all the top of the line luxury garbage. I’m looking for a replacement for my first gen Durango and looked into the Grand Cheroke. The base model isn’t that far off price wise from its competitors BUT… If you want anything over basic AWD less capable than an average Subaru, you get stuck into several levels of model up adding almost 10 grand to the price. Moving on.
P.S. to add, White as the only non premium “color” is also a buzz kill.
P.P.S. Jeep isn’t the only one guilty of the luxury add on requirement to get a capable driveline game.
The Renegade was ancient, going over a decade without many updates, while the Compass is almost as old and suffers from a design that makes all but the top trims look like fleet specials. The Gladiator should be a bit more truck and less Wrangler. The Wagoneer is way too expensive and looks like a hearse. The Grand Cherokee and the Wrangler are the only models that hit the mark, as far as I can tell. But the Wrangler should have a cheap and cheerful trim with a normally aspirated four-cylinder.
This. All of this. And twice on Sunday.
Jeep has similar problems to VW in that its name connotes a very specific type of vehicle. VWs are supposed to be small, relatively inexpensive, frugal and fun. Jeeps are rugged, mostly Spartan, again, relatively cheap, and fun.
VW has spent decades trying to sell upscale CCs and Avalons in the US with little success because they aren’t perceived as an upscale brand. Their SUVs escaped some of that because SUVs were a newish thing and you could get away with higher pricing, but that did not translate to their car lines.
Like wise, Jeep has tried to convince everyone that it’s an upscale SUV company, when its brand history says it’s not. Even nicer car-like Jeeps were still rough around the edges and more affordable than most of the competition because of that. Part of the brand identity.
Now that Jeeps are really mostly just another car, they struggle to escape their history when it comes to market placement and perception. The new Bronco didn’t help matters.
Park a 2024 Wrangler beside a CJ5 and you may be shocked at the scale discrepancy as well as the options list. They’re completely different vehicles and the disconnect is that Jeep wants you to see yourself as that CJ5 cowboy AND upcharge you for a high-end SUV. The two perceptions don’t match. The worst part (for me) is that the Wrangler is a far better car than a CJ5, but it’s not a better Jeep. It’s taller, wider, longer and heavier than the old CJ, but not more rough country capable, and worse in constricted spaces. Jeep no longer sells a tough, no frills vehicle, for lots of reasons, though mostly because buyers aren’t there in the same numbers anymore, plus safety concerns.
I would welcome an affordable, less civilized Jeep model, but I realize I’m in a small minority these days. Cars without touch screens, without driver assist technology, without sophisticated climate control, without living room comfort, and without infotainment centers are not going to get beyond the margins of a sales ledger these days. But, still I hope …
All of which is to say, What the hell is taking Suzuki so long to see the wide open lane back into the US that’s been abandoned by other manufacturers? Bring us the Jimney and keep it cheap. I think there’re still a lot of buyers that would welcome it, but since Suzuki hasn’t returned, I’m probably wrong.
I think you meant Arteons not Avalons.
Yup. Whoops. Just goes to show how little attention I pay to upscale VWs. Can’t even get the names right.
the Arteon wasn’t even very expensive in an era of $40K CRVs and RAV4s; Americans simply don’t care much for sedans unless it has a BMW badge on it.
Not true. Jag, Mercedes, Audi, Caddy. Ford abandoned any attempt to stay relevant.
Consumers decided what was relevant in a blind charge to lifted wagons. The manufacturers had to yield to survive, sadly.
So I guess that the current sedans by the four I mentioned just exist despite no demand? I can’t agree Carlos. There is demand, it’s just specific to a certain demographic.
I still want a hotrod Lincoln. They just don’t make ’em anymore.
You’re not wrong. Jeep has lost an entire generation of Wrangler buyers because young people w/o kids are the market and that market generally doesn’t make enough money to pay 50K out the door for one. In 2024, all the old folks who don’t mind paying fifty grand for that “Jeep they never had” have already bought one. That’s why these things are sitting on dealer lots for between 6K and 12K off sticker.
The typical Wrangler driver in my area has gray hair. It is like the official truck for 50-year old bros.
Any young guy I see driving one is driving a 20 year old one that might actually have mud on it.
The Cherokees lost their soul about 10 years ago, along with the big drop in reliability. The latest incarnations lean too heavily into luxury as well.
The reliability and quality was actually pretty good from what I hear from owners
Certainly Better than the Daewoo GM products and the Crap DCT/Ecoboost Ford 4 cylinder options.
I have a confession to make, but one that reinforces the problems Jeep is now facing. I bought a 2014 Cherokee. I did so because it was the cheapest new SUV with ventilated seats (daily driving in southern heat while wearing suits to work every day) and 4WD (able to have some fun camping on the weekends) I could find when I was shopping in 2013. But Jeep starting to think it was above trying to win those types of pricing battles. It was wrong.
Its a GREED thing, you wouldn’t understand.
Yup – “premium” became the name of the game in business for the last 10 years. Charge more, sell less, double down selling to your “core consumer” (aka boomers). You make way way higher margins and support way less product (less engineers, factory workers, sales people and technicians to employ).
Works great until it doesn’t. Problem is that boomers are still holding the bulk of money in the economy but they’re not driving Wranglers anymore.
Well the Wagoneers are all shit-ass ugly, Wranglers are way too expensive and really suck as daily drivers (they always have and that’s what makes them Jeeps), the Renegade, Compass, Cherokee all competed in the same space against each other of the “I want a Jeep, but not a real Jeep” market, everyone who wanted a Gladiator has/had one already, and finally Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram dealers don’t give a fuck about selling anything but fully loaded Ram’s and marked-up Hellcats.
If I was running Stellantis this would be my North American plan:
No, no, no. Name it the Dakota.
To just burn money?
No, the Dakota peoples suffered enough as is
No, to generate profit. The top 1% love overpaying for “individually tailored” cars, otherwise Porsche wouldn’t be able to sell leather air vent covers with contrasting stitching.
Anyone who thinks Chrysler as anything resembling an ultra luxury vehicle was cremated long ago. You can’t sell disposable minivans and sebrings for decades and hard pivot into super lux and expect good results.
Is that why the Lincoln Continental and the suicide door version were smashing successes? Has the Cadillac Celestiq been successful so far (is it for sale?)?
No, no, no. Name it the Dodge Lamb.
Stellantis should try an innovative conceptcalled ‘advertising’ to sell more Alfas and Fiats in the US, and I agree 100% w you on the Fiat strategy. It’s almost as if they really don’t want to sell cars here.They should bring over the Toro mini-truck too, make Fiat a chic, affordable fun car brand w Italian flair.
First they should try a Japanese concept called “reliability”
This is a lame and hackneyed trope. Overall, Japanese cars are the most reliable; it’s impossible to deny. But that doesn’t mean every other non-Japanese car is unreliable. If that were true, people would only buy Japanese cars. But hey, people love a good stereotype that does away with critical thinking, especially if there’s a fun and simplistic acronym that goes with it. If it was true once it must be true now!
I had a Fiat Abarth for ten years and never had to replace anything other than wear items. Motor Trend had a long term Giulia that needed nothing during its stay, in contrast to the 3 series and Genesis G70 they had at the same time.
Considering the shape of them, I wanted a Gladiator with less overhang and a AValanche style party trick with fold flat rear seats ala the Caravan and a drop down midgate with a window that also rolled down into said midgate.
Or, you know offer the J6 if nothing else.
For this point alone, you deserve a presidential nomination.
“Make a new 300 based on the Giorgio platform with a Hurricane Hybrid drivetrain
Unfortunately, it’s too late for that with the focus on the shift to their new BEV platforms.
“Move the Pacifica up market with more luxury and cushiony ride and bring back the Caravan as a Dodge minivan”
Alright… they should just skip the election and just appoint you as President for this 2nd excellent idea.
Yes! And don’t make the Caravan with the same body as a Pacifica. In other words, don’t make the Caravan just a rebadged Voyager. Make it more Dodge-y. I like the more square look of the Caravan. (admittedly this is probably not a good business idea)
> Fold Ram back into Dodge, no one would actually notice, just stop treating them as separate brands
Correct
> New midsized Dodge Ram truck (call it the Dodge Ram 1000 or 500)
Correct
> Make a new 300 based on the Giorgio platform with a Hurricane Hybrid drivetrain
Fuck yeah
> Move the Pacifica up market with more luxury and cushiony ride and bring back the Caravan as a Dodge minivan
An *affordable* Dodge minivan. For, you know, families who need the space and functionality but whose finances are constantly getting destroyed by inflation and tuition costs.
> Get the QC issues with the Hornet figured out
Bwahahahaaha good one
> New Charger ASAP and make a factory convertible option alongside the coupe
EV only. It’s right there in the name.
> Alfa Romeo is in desperate need of a
bullet in the brain
> Maserati needs
one too
An addendum to point 1. Bring back the crosshair grille!
Rental car lots are overflowing with Wagoneers – my local Enterprise has at least three of them. I rented one a few weeks ago, and not a bad ride for $139 a day. I would never consider plunking down $80+K to buy one.
A dozen years ago, Mazda decided to move upmarket. The difference from Jeep was that they built better cars! A Mazda3 is now about $4k more expensive than a Corolla, but it is a markedly better car. Stellantis just raised the prices without any significant improvements to the vehicles.
I will go to bat for RAM and Jeep interiors (at least the Grand Cherokee & Wagoneers). The quality & design are definitely there. The rest of the Stellantis lineup is at least at parity with competitors in terms of interiors. But the massively inflated pricing still does not align with those improvements.
Everyone calls the Renegade a “crappy Jeep” but I’d argue it wasn’t. We had the Trailhawk Renegade, in yellow, and it was an awesome little machine. The 9 speed didn’t hunt for gears, the 2.4l Tigershark never gave us any issues, and the 4WD system actually locked it’s self and didn’t wait for slippage if you so desired.
Was it small? Absolutely, but for 2 people and a dog it did great. The hatch was big, the seats folded down well for a roomy experience, and the little easter eggs and quality behind the engineering was easy to see.
The problem, as said here, was the price. The fact that we got our used for $22k in 2018 when a new one was nearing 30k was a big problem. They priced themselves out of people’s interest. Hell, there was a time you could get a 6 speed manual, AWD, 500 Abarth engined Renegade for less than $22k. That’s what Jeep needs to get back to, cheap and cheerful AWD/4WD vehicles for the masses.
I mean a lot of it simply comes down to hubris. For more than a decade Jeep and FCA/Stellantis have been like “whatever, idiot. You’ll buy it because it says Jeep on it” and pushed the boundaries of that as far as they could. The comparatively cheap models (Renegade, Compass, Cherokee, etc.) have all essentially died on the vine, and when you combine that with the fact that they’ve been charging more for them at the same time it’s easy to see why no one wants one.
Especially considering CUVs are where the Japanese and Koreans invest the bulk of their resources. A comparable Honda, Toyota, or Hyundai/Kia is going to be better than (insert Jeep product here) until you’re talking about the Grand Cherokee or Wrangler. That’s a problem. It’s hard to stand there and go BUT IT’S A JEEP when the product is inferior and as expensive or even more expensive.
The Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer were also an incredibly stupid play on Jeep’s part. Most people shopping for a $70-$100,000 SUV aren’t going to be interested in a Jeep badge over a luxury one, and while I’m sure the “it has to be American” crowd will take a look at them even that demographic is going to wind up in a GM product a lot of the time. The Escalade is right there and the nicer trims of the Tahoe/Suburban are way nicer than anything Stellantis can cook up.
Most of the world also doesn’t want more 6,000+ pound behemoth SUVs that get fuel economy in the low to mid teens either. Obviously the social climate isn’t as favorable to that stuff as it used to be and gas prices have been really volatile over the last few years on top of that. It was just a really stupid use of resources that, once again, suggests a lot of hubris to me.
“This isn’t really what the market wants anymore, but it’s a JEEP! It’ll practically sell itself! Price it to compete with luxury brands because we want those sweet sweet MARGINS!”
*audible, wet fart*
Imagine if Jeep had taken the resources they incinerated a on the stupid ass Wagoneer and put them into making the Renegade, Compass, and Cherokee competitive. We’d be having a very different conversation right now…and hopefully other manufacturers are taking notes. There’s a point when CHARGE MORE! reaches its carrying capacity and backfires. Oh look! We’re there right now.
I still think if they wanted to make a big SUV they should made it under the Ram brand instead. Make it Tahoe sized and then they could have lux’d it up as time went. Jeep was a bad choice.
I’m car shopping for the wife and she loves Jeeps. We’ve owned a couple of older Grand Cherokees and they ruled, so I get it. New or slightly used GCs are way out of reach for us now, and regular Cherokees are a joke for what they’re asking for them. Not really interested in their other stuff. Too bad, I’d love to be shopping Jeeps along with all the other stuff I’m looking at.
Oh I have nothing bad to say about the Grand Cherokee other than it’s overpriced and I wish they had a better hybrid option (the 4Xe needed more time in the oven IMHO). My sister is currently driving a 2014 Overland that my dad bought brand new.
Things got about 150k on it and it’s held up really well. The interior is still pretty nice, I’ve always thought it drives well for what it is, and it hasn’t needed anything major. There have been some hiccups along the way but my old man is preventative maintenance averse and I’m sure many of them could’ve been avoided if he wasn’t always putting that shit off.
We also use it to tow jet skis and it does well and never complains. That thing has served my family very well and I have a feeling it’ll probably kick around until 200k, although my sister is as fast of a driver as I am but with roughly half of the skill so who knows…but if you want an SUV to do actual SUV shit that you can keep long term and you don’t mind paying a premium for it I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend a GC.
The thing is in 2014 it wasn’t that much of a premium. You could actually get all the features and similar performance of say an X5 for 10-15k less in a grand cherokee overland.
You could go down the forest service road with the trailer and have air conditioned seats.
They just got greedy.
My dad replaced that car last year before it got passed to my sister. You know what he did? He looked at the new Grand Cherokees, said “I can get an X5 for that much money”, and he got an X5 50e after two consecutive Grand Cherokees.
He fucking loves it too. It’s a great car. We’d look at a GC for my wife in a few years but the cost and only hybrid option being half baked essentially have it off our wishlist. There isn’t really enough to compel us to consider it over a Japanese offering.
This is my point exactly. How the execs lost sight of that is baffling to me.
Right? Somehow they didn’t realize that the CHARGE MOAR approach would put them in competition with actual luxury brands. For $60,000+ the Pentastar powered GC is competing with the B58 powered X5, which is built on a RWD luxury sedan architecture. I’ve driven multiple iterations of both and to say the experiences are far apart would be putting it lightly.
You’re also talking Lexus GX money at that point…and if the initial reviews are to be believed the new one is about to completely blow that segment wide open. It’ll be as capable or more capable than a GC if off roading is your priority with Lexus quality. I know what I’m choosing in that situation.
Jeep needs to be worried about competing with the Pilot, Telluride, Palisade, Traverse, CX90, etc. They can hang with that group. Trying to punch up is a fool’s errand with where their products are right now.
Probably down a size honestly. The non L 5 passenger Laredo with basic 4×4 should live between the RAV4 and Highlander price wise TBH. Like it or not nobody s giving them the toyota 200k price premium.
I don’t disagree with your overall points, but this is just wrong. GM interiors were far behind FCA/Stellantis for at least a decade. I would say they only reached parity this year on the highest trims of the Suburban/Denali — and even then I’d say it’s down to personal taste. But the fact is that GM truck/SUV interiors were famously lacking for a long time, whereas that has been a focus of FCA/Stellantis on their high-revenue models.
They saw the demand the wealthy have for the old Grand Wagoneers, and thought they could make a new one. What they didn’t consider is what made those Waggys appeal to old money wealth.
Yes, those OG Wagoneers were big with the town & country set — my boss had one in 1991, and he let me drive it to run errands for the company. It was basically an old-school truck with an expensive plush interior — in other words, not exactly what the new Wagoneer ended up being. I agree that they missed the mark with it. (It also doesn’t help that the thing is dull as dishwater to look at.)
Yeah, I had one of the last SJ Cherokees in the mid 90s.
A base Renegade being just under 30k last year is insanity. I remember when they first announced it being mildly interested in it but even then thinking damn 20k for a bone stock one was a bit much. With options I actually wanted it was probably in the 25k range.
I have a base WK GC and it is cockroach dependable. I have not seen a new base GC in person in many years and now they have so much tacked on that worry I about reliability. Jeeps are simple machines, complicate them and it will lead to downfall. A lux Jeep is not tech, it is nice ride and nice place to be in a capable machine.
I haven’t driven the new/current Grand Cherokee yet, but design-wise it seems more like a lateral move compared to the WK2.
The WK2 looked amazing when it came out, and only got slightly better looking with each year that the added/tweaked some things. They still look really good IMHO.
Give me a final year Trailhawk WK2 with the 3.6, no sunroof.
I had the displeasure of renting a Patriot in Hawaii once. It was probably one of the top 3 worst vehicles I’ve ever driven.
I always thought those looked cool, such a shame that they were shitboxes underneath.
Those Jeep Patriots actually make decent beaters nowadays. The manual ones are generally still around and the engines in them aren’t bad. The interior is a penalty box but cmon what did you expect.
EDIT: You could also get true poverty-spec Patriots without A/C, etc. Never seen one in the wild but still
My brother had one close to that. It had two options from the factory- A/C and Automatic transmission. Still had crank windows, no power locks, passenger seat was not adjustable and the drivers had no height adjustment, no backup cam, etc. Lasted well, he sold it with 90K miles in 2020 and got a fortune for it.
I still see a ton of them on the road of all types. As bad a Chrysler products were in that era, somehow they lasted
I agree that these make for good beaters. Starting in 2011 they swapped the Jatco CVT for a Powertech 6-spd transmission, and they gave the interior a huge makeover. The platform-mate Compass got an exterior redesign that took it from embarrassing to endearing. My neighbor replaced her ancient Caravan with a used (OG)Compass, and it has run fine for a couple of years now. It’s not likely to give her any major problems before 100k miles.
Actually, there’s a ton of info saying that exact thing if you bother to google for 5 seconds. 2022 was bad, 2023 was a year of recovery for wages, and not particularly on the high end.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Yeah, no. The stats also indicate the economy is doing “great”, meanwhile people continue to be squeezed by high grocery and housing costs. The fact that the median home price has nearly DOUBLED in the last few years has absolutely destroyed a huge chunk of the population’s hope of every building wealth.
The stat shared merely indicates that the median fulltime wage-earner’s earnings have never been higher (adjusted for inflation), apart from in the depths of the pandemic when low wage workers were laid off.
Whether you or the author believe that is a sign of a good or bad economy makes no difference to me, but the factual claim in the article was wrong and the data I posted refutes it.
Fair enough, looking solely at wages you are correct.
I just don’t believe that tells the whole story without accounting for the rise in everyone’s expenses. For instance, I have gotten a raise every year, but I am actually worse off financially than I was in 2020 thanks to rising costs of everything.
I also find this chart relevant:
The Productivity–Pay Gap | Economic Policy Institute (epi.org)
.
As a reminder, the wages in the chart I linked to are adjusted for inflation.
Where do you come up with “doubled”. The National Association of Realtors shows national median home prices are up only 10% from January last year. And Jan 2023 was perfectly flat compared to Jan 2022. So, up 10% over the last 2 years. You can go back 5 years and it’s still not doubled. So, well beyond “few years”.
Interest rates on the other hand are making things harder for sure.
My house has doubled in value in the 3 years I’ve owned it. Thankfully I bought it when I did, no way I could afford it now.
That’s great for you, seriously, congrats. But in no way representative of what is happening most everywhere else.
I looked back at the article I had read that in, it was over the last decade. However, it’s up over 30% from Q1 of 2020. Remember, THAT’S when housing started to go bananas. Prices had already skyrocketed from pre-pandemic levels by 2022, so that 10% up is over an already inflated price. And being “flat” in 2023 doesn’t help anyone when rates had gone up so much.
And depending on the area of the country, JumboG’s experience of it doubling in 3 years is not at all rare.
Pretty much everyone I know that has a house says “no way could I have afforded this had I not bought pre-2020”.
I’m not saying it hasn’t gone up. There is just a big difference between 30% in the last 4 years and “doubled in a few years”.
Doubled in a few years would be a staggering statistic.
Its worse than that. By abandoning their loyal customers they have actually activated to cheer their demise.
The reason the 2012-2020 grand cherokee run was so impressive was because you could get a capable off road rig that could tow and had luxury features (heated steeringwheel/AC seats) for ~40k. Now I think you’d be hard pressed to even get 4×4 for 40K.
BTW I don’t think a Genesis is eating their lunch it’s the kia tellurides and even maybe RAV4s of the world.
100% – Owned two WK2’s and test drove a new Grand Cherokee L – It was 10K more than the comparably equipped Hyundai Palisade – Guess which won?
Long time Jeep owner here who has had 5 Jeeps over 28 years, and If I would need to replace my JKU right now, I could get what I want in a Bronco Everglades for over $15K less than a Wrangler Rubicon.
I’m in a similar struggle. I’m a multi-time Jeep owner who actually uses the Jeeps for off-roading, at this point the cost is simply too high to not look at competing products that offer similar capability at a much lower price. The idea of taking a $40k JK Rubicon off-road was a hard pill to swallow when I bought one, but now the same build would be $65k, and that’s just too much to scratch up on a trail.
I feel you. I spend weeks over the summer and many weekends in my JKU off-roading, overlanding, at about 5 off-road parks a year. I could not replace my jeep now and cannot and do not want to afford a $72K Rubicon X.