skimpflation

Skimpflation is paying the same price for worse quality or service: a cheaper ingredient, fewer staff, longer waits, hotel rooms cleaned only on request. The price stays put while what you get quietly gets worse.

What skimpflation means

It’s the cousin of shrinkflation. Shrinkflation makes the product smaller. Skimpflation makes it worse. Think a recipe with cheaper ingredients, an airline cutting the snacks, or a customer service line that now takes an hour.

It’s sneaky because it’s hard to measure. Official inflation figures track prices, not how good a service feels, which was exactly NPR’s point when its Planet Money team proposed the word.

Examples

• “Same price, but the hotel stopped daily cleaning. Classic skimpflation.”
• “They changed the recipe and it tastes worse. Skimpflation strikes again.”
• “An hour on hold is skimpflation in a nutshell.”

Where it came from

A blend of skimp and inflation. NPR’s Planet Money proposed it in an October 26, 2021 piece, describing companies that skimp on goods and services instead of simply raising prices. By 2022 it was turning up in stories about disappearing hotel amenities and streaming services cutting shows.

Related terms

• Shrinkflation: same price, smaller product.
• Enshittification: platforms getting worse over time.
• Vibecession: when the economy feels worse than the numbers say.
• Pink tax: the extra women often pay.

More money words are in our work and money slang guide.