OCDE Prevé 4.2% Inflación en EE.UU. Para 2026, Crecimiento Salarial Sigue Rezagado

Stubborn inflation, underwhelming wage growth, and their effects on New Yorkers’ wallets portend a tepid economic mood across America’s largest metropolis.

It takes roughly $1.50 today to buy what $1 bought in New York City just four years ago—a jolting reminder, as any shopper on Fordham Road or Flatbush Avenue can attest, that “transitory” inflation has proved stubbornly tenacious.

This week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has cast further doubt on the prospect of relief. On March 27th, the body predicted that America’s inflation rate could reach 4.2% in 2026, a figure that is not only double the Federal Reserve’s vaunted 2% target but also implies a continuation of the erosion of real income. Despite recent increases in nominal paycheques, workers find their spending power distinctly pinched: real wages remain below pre-pandemic levels in several advanced economies, including the United States.

For New Yorkers, such projections are more than abstraction. Rents, groceries, subway fares, and the price of a cup of coffee all have climbed with scant regard for median earnings. The city’s celebrated resilience—the stuff of legend from Wall Street to the bodega—now faces an altogether less storied challenge: making ends meet when every dollar buys less.

That the cost of living has tracked steadily upward is plain enough. But the social consequences in the five boroughs are more jagged. Hispanic households, comprising roughly 29% of city residents, are particularly vulnerable. Their average incomes lag the citywide mean by nearly $18,000, according to the most recent Census Bureau estimates; even modest price increases can exact a disproportionately hefty toll.

This divergence is neither new nor unique, but it has been exacerbated by the curious current of recent years: robust headline wage growth that, when adjusted for prices, dissipates into thin air. Such “money illusion” fosters a sense of futility. A 3% pay increase sounds buoyant—until rent and groceries climb 5%. For many, the cumulative effect is a creeping unease about their own economic futures.

There are practical ramifications, as well. Wage growth outpaced inflation for just three of the past twelve quarters, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A city often lauded for its “melting pot” dynamism risks calcification, as lower-income populations will find themselves squeezed out, pressed farther toward the city’s periphery or beyond. Midtown landlords may fret about vacancy rates, but office work is less affected; it is retail, gig work, and frontline service jobs, which disproportionately employ Hispanic and immigrant New Yorkers, that shoulder much of the burden.

National policy debates have become, in part, a proxy war over inflation and purchasing power—in New York, these issues play out with particular intensity. The city’s large foreign-born population is subject to a cruel arithmetic: the dollar remittances sent abroad also buy less for families back home. Local attempts at palliative measures, such as fare discounts or food assistance, are little more than sticking plasters.

Nor is New York’s predicament unique. OECD data show real wages stagnating or falling in other advanced cities—London, Toronto, Paris—where the confluence of persistent inflation and lacklustre real wage growth threatens to harden inequalities. Federal Reserve officials have signalled a continued willingness to keep monetary policy tight if needed, but this brings its own hazards: higher interest rates may cool inflation, but they risk hobbling investment and job creation, especially in high-cost metropolitan regions.

Why signs of resilience are scant comfort

The apparent paradox of America’s economic “resilience”—the OECD did, after all, revise upward its growth forecasts for 2025—belies deeper disquiet, at least in urban settings where inequality is endemic. Monetary policy cannot, on its own, remedy structural issues related to education, housing or wage dispersion. Policymakers should beware the seductive power of averages, especially in a city where median fortunes diverge sharply by neighbourhood.

Fiscal remedies, such as targeted tax credits or rent subsidies, may offer some ballast, but risk stoking further price pressures if poorly designed. Structural reforms—in workforce training, affordable housing, and transit—require political fortitude and a longer-term horizon than next quarter’s inflation print. In the meantime, many New Yorkers—especially those in minority communities—adapt as best they can, cutting back on small luxuries, taking on second jobs, or deferring long-term aspirations.

There is, admittedly, little appetite among major political parties for dramatic intervention. To his credit, Mayor Eric Adams has called repeatedly for more federal aid, arguing that “fiscal cliffs” imperil both city services and social cohesion. Yet Congressional gridlock, like the inflation outlook, shows no sign of abating. New York’s storied improvisation, from co-ops to mutual-aid networks, is poised for further testing.

How quickly could things improve? A softening of inflationary pressure, perhaps via lower energy costs or stabilised supply chains, might bring temporary relief. But with geopolitical risks—including ongoing unrest in commodity-exporting regions—this scenario looks fragile. Meanwhile, a city renowned for its cosmopolitan optimism must contend with the hard reality of slimmer wallets for the foreseeable future.

In sum, New York’s predicament is less an anomaly than an augury. Lessons learned here about the endurance of inflation—and the inadequacy of nominal pay rises—could soon echo in other global cities caught in similar binds. However, if the city’s history is any guide, adversity spurs adaptation as much as resentment.

If there is solace, it is only in New York’s bottomless capacity for reinvention. Cynics and optimists alike would do well to remember: even when squeezed, the city’s drive to endure is rarely puny—even if the average paycheck now is. ■