Americans Are Still Getting Squeezed by Inflation and Washington Isn't Fixing It

The financial press will spin this as a 'cooling trend.' Don't buy it.

Yes, inflation is lower than the 9.1% peak hit in June 2022. That was the highest reading in 40 years. But 'lower than catastrophic' is NOT the same as fixed. Prices don't go backwards just because the rate of increase slows down.

Let that sink in.

What the Numbers Actually Mean

When inflation runs at 3% annually for two straight years on top of a 9% spike, you're looking at cumulative price increases that have gutted the purchasing power of ordinary Americans. A grocery cart that cost $100 in early 2020 now runs closer to $130 or more, depending on what's in it.

Wages have gone up for some workers. But the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's wage growth tracker — which actually tracks real workers — shows that real wage gains have been uneven, and for large portions of the workforce, wage growth has NOT kept pace with the total accumulated inflation hit since 2021.

The Political Games Around Inflation

Here's where both parties deserve to get called out.

Democrats under Biden spent years insisting inflation was 'transitory,' then blamed corporations for 'greedflation,' then claimed the Inflation Reduction Act — which independent economists like those at the Penn Wharton Budget Model said would have minimal near-term impact on inflation — solved the problem. None of that was honest.

Republicans aren't clean either. The Trump administration's current tariff strategy — broad import levies that multiple economists, including those at the Tax Foundation, have warned will directly raise consumer prices on goods — is pouring gasoline on a fire they're claiming to put out. Tariffs are a tax. Americans pay it. Period.

How does promising to cut inflation while imposing tariffs that raise prices make any sense? It doesn't. And the media largely isn't pressing that contradiction hard enough.

The Fed's Fingerprints Are All Over This

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee spent most of 2021 holding interest rates near zero while the money supply exploded. The Fed's own balance sheet ballooned to nearly $9 trillion. That's not a conspiracy theory — that's documented Fed policy.

When inflation finally forced their hand, Powell's team hiked rates 11 times between March 2022 and July 2023, pushing the federal funds rate from near zero to over 5%. That's the most aggressive tightening cycle in decades.

It worked — partly. Inflation came down from its peak. But the Fed is now caught between two bad options: cut rates and risk reigniting inflation, or hold rates high and keep squeezing American homebuyers and small businesses paying through the nose on borrowing costs.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey, has been hovering above 6.5% for much of the past year. The American dream of homeownership is being priced out of reach for millions of young families. That's a direct consequence of years of monetary policy failure.

What Mainstream Coverage Is Getting Wrong

Bloomberg's framing — 'inflation drumbeat persists for unnerved consumers' — makes it sound like Americans are emotionally jumpy rather than economically rational. They're NOT unnerved for no reason. They're unnerved because the math doesn't work.

Median household income, according to the Census Bureau, is roughly $80,000. After taxes, that's maybe $60,000 to $65,000 take-home for a typical family depending on state. Housing costs have surged. Food costs are up. Car insurance is up — State Farm, Allstate, and Progressive have all raised rates significantly in the past two years citing claims costs. Energy prices remain volatile.

Calling people 'unnerved' is condescending. Call it what it is: economically stressed.

The mainstream financial press also consistently focuses on headline CPI while underplaying 'supercore' inflation — services inflation excluding energy — which Powell himself has cited as the stickier, harder-to-kill component. That number has remained stubbornly elevated.

What This Means for You

If you're a working American, here's the honest reality: the inflation emergency is technically over, but the damage is permanent. Those higher prices aren't coming back down. Your dollar buys less than it did four years ago, and no politician in either party has a credible plan to change that.

The coming CPI report will be dissected by Wall Street traders and cable news anchors. They'll argue about whether the Fed cuts rates in September or December. They'll celebrate if the number comes in at 2.8% instead of 3.1%.

Meanwhile, you're still paying $5 for a dozen eggs.

The people who created this problem — through reckless fiscal spending in 2020 and 2021, through years of easy money policy, through tariff games dressed up as economic patriotism — are NOT the ones absorbing the cost. You are.

That's the real story. No drumbeat required.