Member-only story
Most Americans Can’t Afford a Basic Life Anymore
Something’s broken. And it’s not just the economy — it’s the illusion that working hard is still enough to get by in America.
A new report has laid it bare: 60% of American households can’t afford a minimal standard of living. Not luxury. Not comfort. Just basic survival — food, shelter, healthcare, child care, and the digital tools needed to work or study in 2025. All of it increasingly out of reach.
Even the tech you’re reading this on? It’s part of that equation now.
On CBS, Clare Jones, U.S. Economics Editor at the Financial Times, put it bluntly. “We’ve moved from a world of too little inflation to one with potentially too much.” That shift, she says, is leading to something most Americans hoped they’d left behind: permanently higher interest rates.
Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve, didn’t sugarcoat it either. Speaking at the Fed’s Five-Year Framework Review, he admitted this isn’t the post-2008 world anymore. Forget the era of ultra-low rates. We’re heading into an economy where everything — from mortgages…
