We can argue about the reason. We can cast blame or spread it around. The bottom line for the average American remains: It’s more expensive to maintain the same quality of life.

While inflation is nowhere near the levels of the early 2020s — when annual rates in the U.S. peaked around 7% — costs continue to rise even as post-pandemic pressures have eased.

After steep month-to-month rate decreases in 2023 and early 2024, rates have stabilized between 2.3% and 2.9% per month, according to U.S. Labor Department Consumer Price Index data. That’s good news compared with a monthly high of 9.1% in June of 2022. However, it still represents cost increases for everyday items that wages have not caught up with.

Real wages, or the actual worth of the money Americans make, are far from making up the gap that heightened pandemic-era inflation left, despite increases in literal dollars earned.

The result is larger paychecks that nonetheless have less purchasing power.

A look at CPI data over the immediate past couple of years shows that — except for a short-lived increase in costs in certain sectors when widespread tariffs were first levied but before they were altered due to adjustments, deals and eventually lifted — inflation largely remained steady over the last 12 months and the 12 before that. But it didn’t ease either. Inflation continued to hover at about 2.5%

Now, with Americans already struggling, the conflict with Iran is driving the prices of gas and other oil-reliant commodities, such as plastic, higher.

It’s not a new position for Americans to find themselves in. Since the post-WWII industrial boom, the nation’s economy has been marked by the boom-or-bust cycles that are an inevitable part of capitalism. It’s a pattern that doesn’t discriminate between who is president or which party holds Congress. The factors influencing it stretch far beyond anything under their control.

While such cycles may be inevitable, their severity and duration can be impacted. While Americans cannot be spared their effects, we can hope that our elected officials are empathetic enough to do what can be done to soften the blow and avoid decisions that outright exacerbate the problem.

— JP