Trump Promised a Boom. Our Receipts Tell a Different Story.
Pull up to a gas station this week and watch the numbers tick past $4.50 a gallon. For some filling up their diesel trucks, holding the pump steady when the bill soars past $200 is enough to reach for the nitroglycerin pills. Push a grocery cart down any aisle and feel the sticker shock that has become our new normal. The economy we were promised, the one that was supposed to roar back the moment Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office, looks nothing like the one we are actually living in.
The president flew to Beijing this week leaving behind a country that is tired, broke, and increasingly furious. According to a new CNN poll, 70 percent of us disapprove of how he is handling the economy. That number never cracked 50 percent during his entire first term, not even at the worst of the pandemic. Even more telling, 77 percent say his policies have driven up the cost of living right where we live, and that majority includes plenty of Republicans.
This is not a vibes problem. This is a math problem.
Inflation jumped to 3.8 percent in April, according to Axios reporting on the latest federal data, as the Iran war shoved the national average gas price above $4.50 per gallon. That energy shock is not staying at the pump. It is already creeping into the cost of our groceries, our flights, our electric bills, every essential we cannot skip. For the first time in three years, prices are outpacing wages. Whatever raise you got last year just evaporated.
And we are not absorbing this by tightening belts. We are absorbing it with plastic. Consumer borrowing posted its biggest monthly jump in March since late 2022. The personal savings rate sank to 3.6 percent that same month, the lowest reading in years. People are not saving for a rainy day. They are using next month’s paycheck to pay for last month’s groceries.
The mood matches the math. A YouGov and Economist poll cited by Axios found 59 percent of us think the economy is getting worse, while just 15 percent think it is getting better. More than two thirds say the country feels out of control. Small business owners, who tend to feel changes in the economy before the rest of us do, are now reporting their lowest confidence in expansion plans since before the last election, according to the National Federation of Independent Business.
When asked whether our financial struggles were pushing him toward a deal with Iran, the president said the quiet part out loud. “Not even a little bit,” he replied. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” That is not a slip of the tongue. That is a worldview.
The White House insists the pain is temporary, that gas will plunge once the Strait of Hormuz traffic normalizes, that tax cuts and deregulation will deliver. Maybe. But the bills are due now. The rent does not wait for the next campaign rally. The credit card minimum payment does not care about the stock market hitting a new high.
Voters are already moving. According to AtlasIntel, one of the most accurate pollsters of the 2024 cycle, Democrats now lead the generic House ballot 55 to 40. They lead on the cost of living by 15 points, on the economy by 17, and on economic inequality by 20. The party that won on affordability is losing the argument on affordability.
So pay attention. Write down what you paid at the pump this week and what your last grocery run cost. Bring those receipts to the ballot box in November. We were promised a roaring economy. What we got was a five alarm fire, and the people holding the hose just told us they are not thinking about us at all. Go beyond the headlines…
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