Stickiness of nominal wages means thaf deflation leads to more rapid downsizing in industries facing slowdowns (including transitoy ones), which is among the reasons that the Fed, faced with a dual mandate of price stability and promoting full employment, prefers small positive inflation. There's also reason to believe that deflation is more likely to be sticky once entrenched than inflation, because the knock-on effects produce more deflation.
> For those on a fixed income, this is money we lost forever.
Yes, that's a fundamental problem with fixed incomes and why minimum support programs don't tend to use fixed nominal benefits across time. Most people aren’t on fixed incomes, and if we tried to manage price levels around people on fixed incomes, not only would it be bad for everyone else, but it would also threaten the investments underlying the sources of those fixed incomes (which aren’t really fixed, because they can drop, including to 0.)
> For those on a fixed income, this is money we lost forever.
Yes, that's a fundamental problem with fixed incomes and why minimum support programs don't tend to use fixed nominal benefits across time. Most people aren’t on fixed incomes, and if we tried to manage price levels around people on fixed incomes, not only would it be bad for everyone else, but it would also threaten the investments underlying the sources of those fixed incomes (which aren’t really fixed, because they can drop, including to 0.)