Kai Risdahl

And that difference is going to be a problem for workers and for policymakers at the Federal Reserve.

Marketplace's Henry Epp gets us going.

If the prices we pay for groceries and gas and rent rise faster than our wages, we're losing purchasing power.

Christina Sargent is an associate professor of economics at Middlebury College.

And no one likes a pay cut, or at least most people.

But then there are economists, says Catherine Ann Edwards, who is an economist.

But it is kind of good for the Federal Reserve, which wants to keep inflation from climbing even higher.

And that buys the Federal Reserve some time to figure out whether the Iran war is going to keep driving prices up and whether it needs to raise interest rates.

Michael Puglisi, a senior economist with Wells Fargo, says the question Fed members are asking... Is this going to be a temporary phenomenon?

As, you know, over the next several months, maybe the conflict winds down, supply chains normalize, energy prices, you know, they're not going to drop immediately, but they start drifting lower.

Or will it be a longer-lasting conflict that keeps prices rising for months?

And will the recent gains in the labor market keep going?

Puglisi expects policymakers will reassess all that in the fall before they make any big interest rate moves.

Workers, though, don't really have the luxury of waiting around.

Pavlina Chernova is an economist at Bard College.

She also does not expect wages to improve much.

Which could make for some tough decisions in households, arguably harder choices than the ones Fed officials need to make.

I'm Henry App for Marketplace.

On Wall Street today, that drubbing the tech stocks took on Friday, you know what that became today?

A buying opportunity, that's what.