Trump Affordability Test: Prices, Tariffs and Healthcare

Donald Trump, Affordability, Cost of Living, Inflation, Grocery Prices, Healthcare, Tariffs, Gas Prices, AI Data Centers, Congress, 2026 Midterms, U.S. Economy. It is what changed, what got worse, what improved, and what American families can actually afford. By Roberto Zapatero Independent Forensic Investigative Journalist Is America Better Yet? Published: August 22, 2026 Donald Trump returned to the White House with one of the simplest promises in politics: life would become more affordable. For families, that promise was never an abstract economic theory. It was the grocery cart. The electric bill. The rent or mortgage. The prescription waiting at the pharmacy. The car that needed tires. The credit-card balance after the paycheck was gone. On January 20, 2025, his first day back in office, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to pursue what the White House called “emergency price relief” for American families. The order specifically addressed housing, healthcare, food, fuel and other basic costs. 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 an encouraging number 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. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices in July 2026 were 3.4% higher than a year earlier. Food was up 3.0%. Energy was up 14.7%. Inflation eased slightly from June, and some prices fell during July. Gasoline, for example, fell 2.9% from June to July. But gasoline was still 24.6% more expensive than in July 2025. Those distinctions matter. Slower inflation is better than faster inflation. Falling monthly prices matter. But slowing inflation does not erase years of accumulated price increases. It means prices are generally increasing more slowly from an already elevated starting point. Reuters found something politically striking on August 15. During the 2024 campaign, Trump displayed groceries at his Bedminster golf club to show how much prices had risen under President Joe Biden. Reuters later checked 26 of those grocery categories. Collectively, they cost 3.4% more than when Trump returned to office. 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, gasoline, insurance, medicine, child care, the car, debt, then whatever is left. The Federal Reserve Board's latest household survey captures that contradiction. In late 2025, 73% of adults said they were doing okay financially or living comfortably. But 58% 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 ordinary consumer choices. They are choices between necessities. Food: something eventually has to give The latest national measurement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that 18.3 million American households, 13.7% of all U.S. households, were food insecure in 2024. That was before Trump returned to office. It therefore cannot fairly be attributed to him. It establishes part of the condition he inherited. He promised those families relief. Food prices are now another 3% higher than a year ago. Food purchased for home consumption rose 2.7%. Even those averages miss 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 per ounce 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. Financial insecurity can therefore make ordinary necessities more expensive. Can you afford to get sick? Healthcare is where the affordability story stops being only 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 does not need urgent care yet. The Federal Reserve found that 26% of adults skipped medical care because of cost in 2025. For Americans buying coverage through Affordable Care Act Marketplaces, 2026 brought another shock. After enhanced premium tax credits expired at the end of 2025, KFF found that the average monthly amount consumers paid for Marketplace coverage rose 58%, from $113 to $178. Many consumers responded by buying cheaper plans. But average deductibles also jumped 37%, to $3,786, partly because more consumers moved toward lower-premium bronze plans with greater out-of-pocket exposure when care was needed. This distinction matters politically. The expiration of the enhanced tax credits and the healthcare provisions of the 2025 reconciliation law are related parts of the federal affordability picture. They are not the same policy event. The larger 2025 law, Public Law 119-21, changes Medicaid, SNAP, taxes and other federal programs over time. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that reduced Medicaid and SNAP benefits will decrease resources for households toward the bottom of the income distribution, while federal tax changes increase resources for many households in the middle and toward the top. 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. During an April 30, 2025 Cabinet meeting, Trump was responding to concerns that tariffs could mean fewer imported goods and higher prices. He used children's toys as his example, saying children might have “two dolls instead of 30.” As a parenting observation, perhaps two dolls are enough. But that was not the important part. The larger message was that Americans might have to accept fewer goods, and possibly higher prices, while the administration pursued a trade strategy it argued would eventually strengthen 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 asked to accept less today and trust that the policy would pay off later. 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 costs. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that the average U.S. tariff rate rose from 2.6% to 13% during 2025. Using import data through November 2025, they estimated that nearly 90% of the economic burden of those tariffs fell on U.S. businesses and consumers. Separate Federal Reserve research has also found tariff-related increases in consumer prices, while later surveys showed that many businesses still expected additional tariff-related price increases. That does not prove tariffs can never produce a longer-term benefit. It establishes something narrower: 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. Before the current conflict, roughly one-fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption normally moved through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. EIA estimates show shipments through the strait fell sharply after the conflict began, from about 21.6 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 4.9 million barrels per day in the second quarter of 2026. Reuters reported on August 14 that U.S. gasoline prices were roughly 29% higher than a year earlier, and Trump told Americans they should accept high gasoline prices as part of confronting Iran. This is not an argument about whether preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon 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 some of that additional cost can eventually reach the products it delivers. People who were promised lower prices are now being asked to tolerate 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. 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 tax, borrow, 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 national priorities. Some of those expenditures may be necessary. Some 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, large infrastructure investments and, in many designs, significant water resources. They can create substantial construction work, tax revenue and permanent technical jobs. But they are also highly automated facilities. The number of permanent jobs can be modest compared with the amount of capital, electricity and infrastructure involved. Americans have noticed. Gallup found that 71% of Americans opposed construction of an AI data center in their local area, including 48% who were strongly opposed. Gallup found that concerns about environmental effects, electricity, water and quality of life were major reasons for that opposition. Majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents opposed local construction. 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 has itself recognized this problem. In March 2026, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI signed the administration's Ratepayer Protection Pledge, agreeing to obtain the additional generation their data centers require and pay for associated infrastructure rather than shifting those costs onto ordinary electricity customers. The White House expanded that initiative in July. That policy belongs in Trump's credit column. But the results still need to be measured against actual utility contracts and actual bills. A promise not to make households pay is not the same as proof that they did not. 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 capable of spending extraordinary sums when it decides something is urgent. They see war. They see immigration enforcement. They see major federal projects. They see political messaging. They see presidential travel. They see Congress. And then they open their own bank accounts. A presidential trip does not determine the price of electricity. It did not cause grocery inflation. 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 and can investigate or restrain the executive branch. Unified party government does not erase those responsibilities. Republicans currently hold the majority in both chambers. The Senate lists 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents who caucus with Democrats. The House's official party breakdown also shows a Republican majority. 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 increased costs, who benefited, who lost assistance and what should change. When tariffs increase costs, 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 party loyalty as a substitute for independent oversight. And ultimately Congress has an accountability mechanism the president does not control. An election. Where Trump deserves credit An evidence-first investigation cannot hide facts favorable to the administration. Gasoline fell 2.9% in July from June, even though it remained sharply higher than a year earlier. The year-over-year core inflation rate, which excludes food and energy, was 2.5% in July, down from 2.6% in June. Prescription-drug prices were 3.1% lower than a year earlier according to BLS, and fell another 0.8% during July. Trump has pursued policies intended to expand energy production, reduce regulatory barriers to housing construction and strengthen healthcare-price transparency. His administration also created the Ratepayer Protection Pledge to try to prevent data-center infrastructure costs from being shifted onto residential customers. Tax provisions in the 2025 reconciliation law increase resources for many households, although CBO finds that the distribution of those gains and losses varies greatly by income. 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 costs. 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? As the 2026 midterms approach, Reuters reporting and polling show that the cost of living has become a major voter concern and that public confidence in Republican economic management has weakened. That does not mean affordability will decide every race. It means 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 - The 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. - Federal Reserve Board, Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025, May 2026. - USDA 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.” - Congressional Budget Office, distributional analysis of the 2025 Reconciliation Act, Public Law 119-21. - Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Liberty Street Economics, “Who Is Paying for the 2025 U.S. Tariffs?” February 12, 2026. - Federal Reserve Board, research on tariff effects on consumer prices and household spending, 2026. - Reuters, August 14-15, 2026 reporting on grocery prices, gasoline and the Iran conflict. - U.S. Energy Information Administration, Strait of Hormuz and August 2026 energy-market analysis. - Gallup, “Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area,” May 13, 2026. - The White House, Ratepayer Protection Pledge records, March and July 2026. - U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, current 119th Congress party-division records. Reporting note This report separates changes that occurred during the Trump administration from conditions inherited when Trump took office. A change that occurred during a presidency is not, by itself, proof that the president caused it. Where research identifies a measurable policy effect, that research is identified separately. Economic averages also do not describe every household. Prices, income, insurance, taxes, transportation needs and benefit eligibility vary greatly among families and locations. This article is part of IABY's continuing affordability record. Material corrections or newly available primary records will be dated and preserved. AI assistance disclosure: Artificial intelligence was used as a research, organization, drafting, editing, and verification aid in preparing this report. Evidence standard: AI-generated output was not treated as evidence. Every factual claim presented as verified was checked against an identifiable source listed above. Roberto Zapatero Independent Forensic Investigative Journalist Is America Better Yet? I write for you, — Roberto isamericabetteryet.org Copyright: © 2026 Roberto Zapatero / Is America Better Yet? All rights reserved.