Right....But they don't have to care. If you're poor it just gives them the opportunity to create more government programs to make more people dependent on them.
I believe it was Ben Franklin in discussing the pay for soldiers during the Revolutionary War said something to the effect of, "we hired them for dollars and are paying them cents." The massive inflation destroyed the value of the dollar. Politicians didn't care about the 'regular' soldiers or population. They were fine though. I love the founding fathers because of the system they created but I'm not going to pretend they cared about the working class.
"As the war progressed and inflation of Continental currency skyrocketed, by 1781 the rate was $225 Continental paper dollars to every $1 dollar in hard specie, the pay of the soldier did not keep up. In fact, the Continental Congress took over two years to revisit the pay structure from those sessions in late 1775. In May 1778. A colonel in the infantry saw a bump in salary from $50 to $75, a captain to $40 from the $20 they had been earning, yet the poor private soldier did not see an increase."
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/soldier-pay-american-revolution
(post is archived)