Nine Out of Ten Americans Agree: The Economy Is Breaking — And the Numbers Prove It

A Rare National Consensus — And It Isn’t Political America is fractured along nearly every imaginable line. Yet one belief cuts across age, income, geography, and party affiliation: the cost of living is out of control. When 9 out of 10 Americans say we are in a full-blown cost-of-living crisis, that isn’t sentiment — it’s a verdict. It reflects lived reality, not media framing or campaign messaging. Rent, groceries, utilities, insurance, transportation — the basics are consuming paychecks faster than wages can replace them. This level of agreement doesn’t emerge from hysteria. It emerges when denial becomes impossible. Inflation Isn’t Abstract — It’s a Daily Tax on Survival For decades, inflation was treated as a distant macroeconomic concept. Today, it’s…