Are We Better Off Now? — Is America Better Yet?

By Roberto Zapatero
Is America Better Yet?
Updated August 15, 2026

Donald Trump returned to the White House with one of the simplest promises in politics: life would become more affordable.

On January 20, 2025, his first day back in office, Trump ordered federal agencies to pursue what the White House called “emergency price relief” for American families. The order named housing, healthcare, food, fuel, transportation and other necessities.

That promise gave Americans a standard by which to judge his presidency.

Not whether the stock market reached another record. Not whether Washington passed another enormous bill. Not whether economists could find encouraging numbers buried inside a government report.

Can we afford our lives?

Nineteen months later, the evidence does not show that America's affordability crisis has been defeated.

Consumer prices in July were 3.4 percent higher than a year earlier. Food was 3 percent higher. Energy was 14.7 percent higher. Inflation has slowed from some earlier periods, and individual prices have fallen. Gasoline, for example, dropped 2.9 percent in July.

Those improvements matter and should not be hidden.

But slowing inflation does not undo years of accumulated price increases. It means prices are generally rising more slowly from an already elevated starting point.

Reuters found something politically remarkable on August 15. Trump used a display of groceries at his Bedminster golf club during the 2024 campaign to demonstrate how much prices had risen under President Biden. Reuters checked 26 grocery categories represented in that display. Collectively, those categories were 3.4 percent more expensive during the first 19 months of Trump's second term.

Trump asked Americans to look at their groceries.

It remains a fair test.

What affordability really means

Inflation and affordability are not the same thing.

Imagine a family's grocery bill rises from $150 to $200. Inflation then slows dramatically. The next year the bill reaches only $205 instead of $220.

Inflation improved.

The family is still paying $55 more than it once did.

Both things can be true.

That is why affordability cannot be understood through one economic statistic. A household experiences the economy as a checking account: rent or mortgage, groceries, electricity, gas, insurance, medicine, child care, the car, debt, then whatever is left.

The Federal Reserve's latest household survey captures this contradiction. Seventy-three percent of adults said they were doing okay financially or living comfortably in late 2025. But 58 percent said price changes during the preceding year had made their financial situation worse. Sixteen percent had failed to pay all their bills in the previous month. Twenty-six percent skipped medical care because of cost. Fifty-nine percent experienced at least one major unexpected expense during the year.

Those numbers describe an America that is functioning.

They do not describe an America free from financial stress.

The hierarchy of sacrifice

Affordability usually does not collapse all at once.

First, people cut things they can live without. Then they postpone things they need. Then they substitute something cheaper. Then they borrow. Eventually, necessities begin competing with necessities.

Dinner out disappears first. Then the weekend trip. Clothes last another season. Streaming services get canceled. The old phone survives another year. Parents say no to something their children want.

None of those decisions necessarily means a family is poor.

But something has changed.

Choice is disappearing.

Then postponement begins. The dentist can wait. The car can make that noise another month. The tires probably have a little more life in them. The roof repair can wait until fall. The prescription gets picked up after payday. The emergency fund pays an ordinary bill. The retirement contribution gets smaller.

These decisions can look like savings. Often they are simply borrowing from the future. The tooth gets worse. The car repair becomes larger. The medical condition progresses. The emergency fund is gone when an actual emergency arrives. A family saves money today because it cannot afford not to, then sometimes pays more tomorrow.

Next comes substitution. The familiar brand becomes the cheaper one. Meat appears less often. Families shop around, buy used, repair instead of replace and become extraordinarily good at stretching what they have.

There is nothing wrong with thrift. The question is whether people are choosing it or being forced into it.

Then the credit card becomes part of the paycheck. Groceries go on it. Gas goes on it. The car repair goes on it. The family makes it through another month.

But the food is gone and the debt remains.

Interest becomes another household expense.

Being short of money starts costing money.

Eventually there is very little left to cut. Then the question changes: Do we pay the electric bill or the credit card? Do we buy the medicine or fill the tank? Do we repair the car or pay the insurance? Do we buy enough groceries or protect the rent money? Do we see the doctor or wait?

Those are no longer consumer choices.

They are choices between necessities.

Food: something eventually has to give

The latest USDA national measurement found that 18.3 million American households were food insecure in 2024.

That was before Trump returned to office, so it cannot fairly be attributed to him. It establishes the condition he inherited.

He promised those families relief.

Food prices are now another 3 percent higher than a year ago.

And even that national average misses important realities.

A person with enough money can buy in bulk and reduce the cost per ounce. Someone living paycheck to paycheck may have to buy the smaller package that costs more because the larger package requires money they do not have today.

A family with a reliable car can drive to another supermarket. Someone without transportation buys what is available nearby. People with medical dietary restrictions cannot always buy the cheapest calories.

Poverty and financial insecurity can therefore make ordinary necessities more expensive.

Can you afford to get sick?

Healthcare is where the affordability story stops being about giving something up and starts becoming about taking a risk.

You can skip dinner out. You can keep the old phone. You can postpone a vacation.

But what happens when the thing you cannot afford is the doctor?

For millions of Americans, possessing an insurance card does not answer that question. There is the premium. Then the deductible. Then the copay. Then the prescription. Dental care may be another bill entirely.

So people wait.

Maybe the pain will go away. Maybe that tooth can last another month. Maybe the prescription can stretch until payday. Maybe the child doesn't need urgent care yet.

The Federal Reserve found that 26 percent of adults skipped medical care because of cost in 2025.

For Americans buying insurance through Affordable Care Act Marketplaces, 2026 brought another shock. After enhanced premium tax credits expired at the end of 2025, the average monthly amount consumers paid for Marketplace coverage rose 58 percent, from $113 to $178.

Many consumers responded by buying cheaper plans. But cheaper premiums frequently meant greater exposure when they actually needed treatment.

This distinction matters politically. The expiration of those enhanced credits and the healthcare provisions of the 2025 reconciliation law are related parts of the federal affordability picture, but they are not the same policy event.

The larger 2025 law also changes Medicaid and other federal benefits over time. The Congressional Budget Office says lower federal spending on Medicaid and SNAP will reduce resources available to affected households, while tax and cash-transfer provisions increase resources overall and particularly benefit many households elsewhere in the income distribution.

The effects do not all arrive on the day a president signs a bill.

Sometimes the ceremony comes first.

The household bill comes years later.

That is why Americans deserve to know not merely what Congress passed, but when each provision reaches them.

The government said sacrifice, too

There was a revealing moment early in Trump's tariff program.

While defending the possibility that tariffs would mean fewer imported goods and higher prices, Trump used children's toys as his example. He suggested that a child might have two dolls instead of 30.

As a parenting observation, perhaps two dolls are enough.

But that wasn't the important part of what the president was saying.

The larger message was that Americans might need to accept fewer goods at higher prices while the administration pursued a trade strategy it believed would eventually benefit the country.

That is a legitimate policy argument.

It is also a request for sacrifice.

And it came from a president who had promised to lower the cost of living.

Families were effectively being told to tighten their belts and trust that the policy would eventually pay off.

That raises a fair question:

Why should households be asked to accept less when the promise was that life would become more affordable?

Tariffs: where we can measure the cost

Trump argues that tariffs can rebuild American manufacturing, strengthen domestic supply chains and reduce dependence on foreign countries.

Those potential benefits should be measured rather than dismissed.

But so should the immediate cost.

New York Federal Reserve researchers found that the average U.S. tariff rate increased from 2.6 percent to 13 percent during 2025 and estimated that nearly 90 percent of the economic burden fell on American businesses and consumers.

That does not prove tariffs can never produce a longer-term benefit.

It establishes that Americans have already paid part of their price.

The promised future benefit and the present household cost belong on the same ledger.

Gasoline brings foreign policy home

A war thousands of miles away can become a household expense in the time it takes to drive to a gas station.

The conflict with Iran disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war handled roughly one-fifth of the world's oil.

Reuters reported on August 14 that the average U.S. gasoline price was about $4.08 a gallon, roughly 29 percent higher than a year earlier. Trump told Americans to prepare for continued high fuel prices while arguing that preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons justified the cost.

This is not an argument about whether preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is a legitimate national-security objective.

It is an affordability fact.

Foreign policy has reached the family budget.

The nurse driving to work pays it. The construction worker pays it. The rural family that cannot use a subway pays it. The delivery company pays it, and eventually some of that cost can reach the things it delivers.

People who were promised lower prices are now being asked to accept higher fuel prices in service of another government priority.

Voters can decide whether that priority is worth its cost.

Our responsibility is to show them the cost.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is part of the ledger

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is sometimes discussed as though the government has a giant underground tank of cheap gasoline.

It does not.

The SPR stores crude oil.

On March 11, the Department of Energy announced that the United States would release 172 million barrels of crude oil from the reserve as part of a coordinated 400-million-barrel emergency action by International Energy Agency member nations.

DOE structured the U.S. action as an exchange. Companies receiving crude must return oil later, with additional barrels under the exchange terms.

EIA data show that the SPR contained approximately 298.694 million barrels on August 7.

That matters in both directions.

Putting crude into the market can help relieve a supply disruption. But barrels outside the reserve are not available there if another emergency occurs before replacement oil arrives.

The reserve also cannot determine the price displayed at a gas station. Crude prices are only one part of the cost of gasoline. Refining, inventories, transportation, taxes, regional conditions, demand and events in global markets matter too.

EIA's August 11 outlook forecasts regular gasoline averaging about $3.78 a gallon during 2026 and $3.29 during 2027.

Those are forecasts, not promises.

War, hurricanes, refinery outages, sanctions, shipping disruptions and unexpected changes in supply or demand can change them.

The accountability questions are therefore measurable: how much oil left the reserve, when it is supposed to return, whether it returns on schedule, what the reserve contains in the meantime and what consumers ultimately pay.

What America chooses to afford

This leads to an uncomfortable part of the affordability debate.

Families make budgets.

Governments make budgets too.

They are not equivalent. The United States can borrow, tax, appropriate and finance programs in ways no household can.

But budgets still reveal priorities.

Washington can find enormous sums for defense, military operations, immigration enforcement, detention facilities, border infrastructure, technology and other priorities.

Some of those expenditures may be necessary. Some may enjoy broad public support. Others are deeply contested.

The affordability question is not whether every defense or immigration dollar could instead be deposited into someone's checking account.

Government finance does not work that way.

The question is whether the urgency Washington applies to its chosen priorities is visible in its response to the bills arriving at American homes.

A family cannot appropriate another $10 billion when its money runs out.

It has a paycheck.

So it makes its own appropriations: housing first, food, electricity, gasoline, insurance, medicine, the car, debt, maybe child care, maybe the dentist, maybe savings.

Somewhere down that list, something does not get funded.

The AI boom has a household bill, too

Artificial intelligence has created another version of the same question.

Data centers require enormous amounts of electricity, infrastructure and, in some designs, water. They can create substantial construction work, tax revenue and permanent technical jobs. But they are also highly automated facilities whose permanent employment can be modest compared with their capital investment and resource use.

Americans have noticed.

Gallup found that about seven in 10 Americans opposed construction of an AI data center in their own area, with resource use among the concerns. Opposition crossed party lines.

The relevant affordability question is not whether data centers are good or bad.

It is:

Who pays?

If a technology company needs a new substation, transmission system or generating capacity, should an elderly resident already struggling with an electric bill help finance it?

If a community grants tax incentives, how many permanent jobs actually result? How much water will be consumed? How much tax revenue remains after exemptions? Who pays if the project is canceled?

The Trump administration itself has recognized the ratepayer problem.

Its Ratepayer Protection Pledge says participating data-center companies will pay for new power-delivery infrastructure and other power costs required by their projects rather than shifting those expenses onto ordinary households.

That is a significant policy commitment.

It should also be measured against actual utility contracts and bills.

A promise not to make households pay is not the same as proof that they didn't.

And then there is what Americans see

Politics is not experienced solely through legislation.

It is also experienced through contrast.

Families working extra hours and cutting expenses see a federal government that can spend extraordinary sums when it decides something is urgent. They see a president spend time at private properties while they are cutting expenses at home. They see political messaging throughout the day. They see enormous government projects. They see war. They see immigration enforcement. They see Congress.

And then they open their own bank accounts.

Presidential recreation did not cause grocery inflation.

A golf trip does not determine the price of electricity.

Those would be false connections.

But public leadership also carries symbolism.

When government asks people to accept sacrifice, people are entitled to ask whether those governing them appear to understand the sacrifice being requested.

That is a question of trust, not CPI.

Congress has a job here, too

The American system did not give the president sole responsibility for the country.

Congress writes laws, controls spending, investigates the executive branch and can restrain presidential policy.

Unified party government does not erase those responsibilities.

Oversight is not disloyalty.

It is the job.

When an administration promises lower prices and households continue struggling, Congress should ask which policies worked, which failed, which raised costs, who benefited, who lost assistance and what should change.

When tariffs raise prices, Congress can examine them. When healthcare changes arrive years after legislation passes, Congress can explain them. When data centers require enormous electrical infrastructure, regulators and lawmakers can determine who pays. When billions are appropriated elsewhere, Congress can explain why.

The public should not have to accept that party loyalty is a substitute for independent oversight.

And ultimately Congress has an accountability mechanism the president does not control.

An election.

Where Trump deserves credit

This investigation should not hide evidence favorable to the administration.

Gasoline declined in July after earlier enormous increases. Prescription-drug prices also fell during the month. Inflation slowed slightly.

Trump has pursued regulatory changes intended to increase housing construction, expanded domestic-energy policies and renewed federal efforts on healthcare-price transparency.

His administration has also acted on a legitimate concern that data-center infrastructure costs could be shifted onto residential electricity customers.

The 2025 reconciliation law's tax provisions increase resources available to many households, even as reductions in Medicaid, SNAP and other provisions produce losses elsewhere.

Trump also inherited much of America's affordability problem.

He did not create years of accumulated food inflation in January 2025. He did not create America's housing shortage. He did not create medical debt. He did not create every increase in insurance.

And a president does not independently set world oil prices.

Those facts matter.

But so does another one.

He promised to fix it.

Are we better off now?

Maybe that is the question this entire investigation comes down to.

Not whether inflation is technically slowing. Not whether GDP increased. Not whether Washington passed another bill. Not whether a politician can explain why something happened.

Are we better off now?

Look at your own life.

Look at what groceries cost. Look at the rent. Look at the mortgage. Look at electricity. Look at gasoline. Look at insurance. Look at medicine. Look at the credit-card balance. Look at savings.

Then look at the paycheck.

Ask what you stopped buying.

Ask what you postponed.

Ask what went on the credit card.

Ask whether you could afford a broken transmission tomorrow.

Ask whether someone in your family getting sick would first make you worry about their health or the bill.

Ask whether your children have more opportunity than they did a year ago.

Ask whether you are building a future or merely financing the present.

And then ask:

What is left?

The cost of living is now among the central issues Americans say they want congressional candidates to address as the 2026 midterms approach.

That does not mean affordability will decide every race.

It does mean voters have a record to examine.

We do not need to tell them whether to keep their representative. We do not need to tell them whether to replace one party with another. We do not need to tell them what they should want in 2028.

That decision belongs to them.

Our responsibility is smaller and harder.

Show them what happened.

Show what things cost. Show what wages bought. Show who paid the tariffs. Show what happened to healthcare. Show what Congress enacted that has not yet fully reached household budgets. Show where government spent its money. Show where policies worked. Show where they did not. Show what Trump inherited. Show what changed afterward.

Show the numbers without hiding the human beings inside them.

Then stop.

Because Americans already possess the final piece of evidence.

They live with it.

They see it in their families. They feel it when something goes back on the grocery-store shelf. They feel it when a prescription waits. They feel it when the credit card comes out because the paycheck is gone. They feel it when they lie awake wondering what happens if something else breaks.

Donald Trump asked Americans to judge government by what everyday life costs.

That remains a fair standard.

Only now he is president, and Republicans control Congress.

The voters will decide whether the people they elected have earned another term.

We show them the record. They decide.

Sources

White House, Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis, January 20, 2025.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index, July 2026, released August 12, 2026.
Reuters, analysis of Trump's 2024 Bedminster grocery display and 26 Bureau of Labor Statistics grocery categories, August 15, 2026.
Federal Reserve Board, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025, May 2026.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, Household Food Security in the United States in 2024.
KFF, What We Know So Far About 2026 ACA Marketplace Enrollment, Premiums and Deductibles, 2026.
Congressional Budget Office, Distributional Effects of Public Law 119-21, August 11, 2025.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Liberty Street Economics, Who Is Paying for the 2025 U.S. Tariffs?, February 12, 2026.
Associated Press, reporting on Trump's tariff and children's-doll remarks, May 2025.
Reuters, reporting on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz and U.S. gasoline prices, August 14, 2026.
U.S. Department of Energy, United States to Release 172 Million Barrels of Oil From the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, March 11, 2026.
U.S. Department of Energy, SPR emergency-exchange terms, March 13, 2026.
U.S. Energy Information Administration, weekly Strategic Petroleum Reserve inventory data, week ending August 7, 2026.
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook, August 11, 2026.
Gallup, Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area, May 13, 2026.
White House, Ratepayer Protection Pledge, March 4, 2026, with July 2026 implementation update.
White House, Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction, March 13, 2026.
White House, healthcare-price-transparency executive action and fact sheet, February 25, 2025.
Reuters/Ipsos, polling and Reuters reporting on affordability and the economy ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, July-August 2026.

I write for you,

— Roberto

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