Inflation and the Poor.

Using polling data for 31,869 households in 38 countries and allowing for country effects, we show that the poor are more likely than the rich to mention inflation as a top national concern. This result survives several robustness checks. We also find direct measures of improvements in well-being of the poor--the change in their share in national income, the percent decline in poverty, and the percent change in the real minimum wage--to be negatively correlated with inflation in pooled cross-country samples.