The midterm elections are already upon us, and every Democrat and Independent running against a Republican should ask voters the question Ronald Reagan asked on 28 October 1980, at the end of his televised debate against Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off now than you were before this presidency?”
Unless you’re very, very rich, the answer is obviously: “No, I’m worse off.”
Start with his tariffs, which are costing every American household an average of $1,100 annually, according to the Yale Budget Lab. (If you don’t trust Yale, the conservative Tax Foundation estimated last year’s tab to be $1,000 per household.)
Even cleaning supplies and toilet paper are up at least 5%. Household furnishings, up at least 8%. Clothing, up at least 14%. Trump’s tariffs have also increased the costs of big-ticket items such as cars and made it more expensive to build new homes.
Other studies find that the tariffs have added as much as 0.7 and 0.5 percentage points to the consumer price index and the personal consumption expenditures price index, respectively.
Then there’s Trump’s war in Iran, which is driving up energy and food prices, as oil tankers remain stranded in the strait of Hormuz.
The war is costing more at the gas pump – about $670 more per household since the war began. Americans face what The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers describe as “a worsening utility debt crisis”. The groups wrote in an analysis published last month:
Energy bills have increased three times faster than the rate of inflation while Trump has been president. The national average monthly utility bill reached $280 in early 2026, a 12% increase since the end of 2024, just before the second Trump administration took office.
What’s the Republican response to soaring energy utility prices? Eliminate billions in clean energy subsidies and tilt the scales toward costlier, dirtier fossil fuels.
Also driving up the cost of electricity are AI datacenters. They’re also using up huge amounts of water and creating noise pollution. And who’s been pushing these datacenters? Trump and, before recent backlash, many Republicans.
Trump’s war and the blockage of the strait are also causing fertilizer shortages, which are sending food prices upward. Millions of Americans are now struggling to afford groceries.
Meanwhile, Trump’s huge tax cuts – which mostly benefited big corporations and the super-wealthy – are being paid for, in part, by Republican cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.
Trump announced last month that he is ending Medicare subsidies that have kept drug prices low for seniors; Republican cuts to the Affordable Care Act have deprived millions of Americans of health insurance.
Hell, even Trump’s executive order to divide the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine into three shots instead of one is adding burdens to the typical American family.
As the Republican senator Bill Cassidy said on ABC’s This Week: “This is why the president’s poll numbers are down, because you’ve lost sight of affordability for the parent. You’ve lost sight of the convenience for the American family. You’ve lost sight of that which is driving higher costs in healthcare – for example, more doctor’s visits … for something which has no rationale in science.”
Trump’s obsession with gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has denied Americans billions in foregone rebates and settlements.
The regime spent $464m of taxpayer dollars in a no-bid contract for a special fleet of jets intended to deport immigrants. The planes have almost never been used.
On and on it goes.
Trump says the US economy is “doing unbelievably from the standpoint of Wall Street”.
Maybe, but most Americans live on Main Street and own few if any shares of stock. The richest 1% holds more than half of the value of stocks listed on US stock exchanges; the richest 10%, 92%. Even including retirement accounts, only 16% of adult Americans have assets exceeding $100,000.
The stock market boom reflects a boom in corporate profits. The pharmaceutical industry, big oil, and other sectors are posting banner earnings. Second quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are on pace to rise a remarkable 50% year over year, the highest growth rate since the second quarter of 2021.
But average working Americans are struggling to keep their heads above water.
Trump’s comments about the roaring stock market came the same day that new data showed US consumer sentiment dropped in August. Americans’ outlook on the country’s economic conditions have worsened among Republicans as well as among Democrats.
The July jobs report showed the US economy shedding 23,000 jobs, wage growth slowing, and the unemployment rate falling because more people left the workforce.
My humble advice to Democratic candidates in the midterms: don’t be distracted. Don’t take the bait and discuss socialism, “woke”ism, or anything else.
Just ask this simple question: are you better off now than you were before this presidency? And explain how badly Trump and congressional Republicans have shafted average working people.
You’re better off than you were before the start of this presidency only if you’re a major investor in the stock market, a top corporate executive or a beneficiary of Trump’s largesse to his billionaire backers.
But if you’re an average working American, you’re indubitably worse off. Hopefully, you’ll vote your economic interests on 3November and deposit Trump’s congressional lapdogs into the dustbin of history.
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Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and in the UK
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هلدینگ کاسپین استانبول | خرید ملک در ترکیه | صرافی معتبر ایرانی در ترکیه | خرید و فروش طلا در ترکیه | مهاجرت به ترکیه | واردات و صادرات در ترکیه | نیازمندیهای ترکیه | اخبار ترکیه | اخبار جهانی | توریست ایران | خدمات توریستی در ایران | تورهای گردشگری ایران | هلدینگ اول | خدمات کاریابی و فریلنسری و شغل | مرجع اطلاعات ایران (همه چیز در ایران) | کیف پول و خدمات مالی و پرداخت یار | اخبار ایران | تابلو زنده قیمت ارز در ترکیه و استانبول | صرافی آنلاین ترکیه | قیمت طلا و نقره در ترکیه | سرمایه گذاری در ترکیه | جواهرات در ترکیه | نرخ لحظه ای ارزها در استانبول | قیمت دلار امروز در ترکیه | قیمت دلار استانبول امروز | قیمت لحظه ای دلار | اخبار روز ترکیه استانبول | اپلیکیشن ISTEX | اپلیکیشن قیمت لحظه ای دلار و یورو و لیر و ارزها در ترکیه
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