50 Inflation Quotes About Ever-Rising Costs

If you feel stressed or angry about the increasing cost of goods and services, check out these Inflation quotes.

You’re likely experiencing the pain of inflation every time you hit the grocery store, and you may even find yourself thinking twice before spending because the costs have increased drastically.

Inflation is the rise in the cost of goods and services over a period of time.

When the cost of goods and services far outweighs the average salary increase over that same period, it leaves individuals with less disposable income.

A high inflation rate even puts some people in the red regarding their income versus their expenses.

Inflation usually occurs when there is a shortage of a product or service, an issue in the supply chain, or government programs cause inflation rates to increase.

Over the last year, we’ve hit higher inflation rates than we have in decades, meaning some of us have never witnessed it.

Take a look at these inflation quotes to learn more about inflation and its effects on the economy.

Top Inflation Quotes

These short quotes give you a good idea of what inflation is all about.

1. “Inflation is the crabgrass in your savings.” — Robert Orben

2. “Production is the only answer to inflation.” — Chester Bowles

3. “The lesson is clear. Inflation devalues us all.” — Margaret Thatcher

4. “Having a little inflation is like being a little pregnant.” — Leon Henderson

5. “Continued inflation inevitably leads to catastrophe.” — Ludwig von Mises

6. “Unemployment is a side effect of the cure for inflation.” — Milton Friedman

7. “Inflation is a form of tax, a tax that we all collectively must pay.” — Henry Hazlitt

8. “Make no mistakes about it, inflation is a tax and not by accident.” — Ronald Reagan

9. “Inflation makes the wealthiest people richer and the masses poorer.” — James Cook

10. “Inflation takes from the ignorant and gives to the well-informed.” — Venita VanCaspel

The Problem with Inflation Quotes

These quotes share more about the problems of inflation.

11. “Things there are no solution to: Inflation, bureaucracy, and dandruff.” — Malcolm Forbes

12. “Inflation is like toothpaste. Once it’s out, you can hardly get it back in again.” — Karl Otto Pohl

13. “Inflation outstripped real wages for people who work for pay from others.” — Tim Bishop

14. “Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man.” — Ronald Reagan

15. “Inflation is not only unnecessary for economic growth. As long as it exists, it is the enemy of economic growth.” — Henry Hazlitt

16. “Inflation is a very real threat to the pocketbooks of hardworking Americans throughout our great country.” — Tommy Tuberville

17. “The present system combining taxation and inflation is akin to watering the milk; too much water and the people catch on.” — Ron Paul

18. “Inflation destroys savings, impedes planning, and discourages investment. That means less productivity and a lower standard of living.” — Kevin Brady

19. “By a continuing process of inflation, the government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” — John Maynard Keynes

20. “The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation. From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.” — Charles Lindbergh

Funny Inflation Quotes

While there’s nothing funny about inflation, these people found a way to put a funny spin on it.

21. “Inflation hasn’t ruined everything. A dime can still be used as a screwdriver.” — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

22. “I don’t mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I’ve saved all year.” — Victor Borge

23. Inflation is bringing us true democracy. For the first time in history, luxuries and necessities are selling at the same price.” — Robert Orben

24. “Americans are getting stronger. Twenty years ago, it took two people to carry ten dollars worth of groceries. Today, a five-year-old can do it.” — Henny Youngman

25. “Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair.” — Sam Ewing

Inflation Quotes from History and International Lessons

These quotes speak to inflation in history.

26. “When runaway inflation and bank failures struck in Germany in the 1920s, the middle class was destroyed, which led directly to the rise of the Nazis.” — Nick Clooney

27. “The Great Inflation of the 1970s destroyed faith in paper assets because if you held a bond, suddenly the bond was worth much less money than it was before.” — Ron Chernow

28. “Thirty years ago, many economists argued that inflation was a kind of minor inconvenience and that the cost of reducing inflation was too high a price to pay. No one would make those arguments today.” — Martin Feldstein

29. “You could not buy a house in those days without just assuming the house was not only a place to live, but it was a good investment because it was going to keep up with inflation or get ahead of inflation, and it was just—that was America.” — Paul A. Volcker

30. “In the eighties, I would hear every day that there is no inflation in the Soviet Union, there is no poverty in the Soviet Union, there is no unemployment in the Soviet Union. And now we find that, due to Socialism, there is no Soviet Union.” — Subramanian Swamy

Inflation Quotes About the Government and More

Learn more about the government and its control of inflation here.

31. “If the world’s using Bitcoin, governments won’t be able to fund wars through inflation like they do today.” — Roger Ver

32. “Historically, gold has always been a safe haven against inflation and a safe have in times of political instability.” — John Paulson

33. “Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom.” — Walter E. Williams

34. “In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.” — Alan Greenspan

Quotes About the Causes of Inflation

35. “Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending.” — Ayn Rand

36. “I continue to believe that the American people have a love-hate relationship with inflation. They hate inflation but love everything that causes it.” — William E. Simon

37. “I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.” — Friedrich August von Hayek

38. “The most important thing to remember is that inflation is not an act of God, that inflation is not a catastrophe of the elements or a disease that comes with the plague. Inflation is a policy.” — Ludwig von Mises

39. “When you destroy a currency by creating money out of thin air to pay the bills, the value of the dollar goes down, and people get hit with a higher cost of living. It’s the middle class that’s being wiped out.” — Ron Paul

40. “Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce… when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.” — James A. Garfield

Taxes and Inflation Quotes

These quotes show how the government uses inflation like a tax on the people.

41. “Inflation is taxation without legislation.” — Milton Friedman

42. “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” — Vladimir Lenin

43. “Inflation is taxation, and taxation is theft that takes more money out of hard-working American’s pocketbooks.” — Lauren Boebert

44. “Inflation is just another tax on every American, and in California, we already pay some of the highest taxes in the entire country.” — Michelle Steel

45. “It is a way to take people’s wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.” — Thomas Sowell

46. “There are only three ways to meet the unpaid bills of a nation. The first is taxation. The second is repudiation. The third is inflation.” — Herbert Hoover

47. “Massive debts owed to foreign creditors weaken our global influence and threaten high inflation and steep tax increases for our children and grandchildren.” — Evan Bayh

48. “Every time the Fed implements ‘quantitative easing,’ a.k.a. printing more money, two things go up: taxes and inflation. When taxes and inflation go up, more jobs are lost.” — Robert Kiyosaki

49. “Taxes on capital, taxes on labor, inflation, bureaucratic regulation, minimum wage laws, are all—to different degrees—unnecessary slices of the wedge that stand between an individual’s effort and reward for that effort.” — Jack Kemp

50. “Government has no wealth, and when a politician promises to give you something for nothing, he must first confiscate that wealth from you—either by direct taxes or by the cruelly indirect tax of inflation.” — John Wayne

Is Inflation Normal?

Yes, it is normal for the cost of goods and services to go up over time, usually at a rate of 2-3% per year.

However, when inflation rates rise above the normal, it harms the economy and, even worse, puts some people out of jobs or homes.

Government programs usually try adjusting for high inflation to get it back to low or normal rates for a healthy economy.

Share these Inflation Quotes with your friends and family, and post any comments about inflation in the comment section below.