The US Cost of Living Index
US Cost-of-Living Crisis Enters a Darker Phase
April 29 - May 13, 2026
The latest reading (Apr 29–May 13) shows cost-of-living sentiment deteriorating to –18, the weakest level recorded since Trump returned to office and below the lows reached during the April 2025 “Liberation Day” tariff crisis. After several weeks stabilizing around –16, the latest decline suggests the cost-of-living crisis is entering a more pessimistic and politically dangerous phase.
The comparison with last year’s tariff shock is important. During the height of the tariff crisis, sentiment weakened sharply but this situation was quickly remedied because the administration could reverse course — which ultimately, in part, they did.
This time it’s different. Many voters are already struggling with the cost of living and now believe a further wave of price increases is on the way.
That mindset matters enormously six months from the midterms.
Earlier in the year, periods of economic deterioration still carried an assumption that conditions might eventually stabilize. That expectation now appears to be fading. Voters are not discussing when things may improve. They are discussing what will cost more next week, next month, and how much worse conditions could become if the Iran conflict continues to destabilize energy markets.
For the first time in this series, discussion surrounding the “Trump economy” becomes the largest single driver of negative sentiment (30%). That marks a significant political shift. Previous waves of negativity were dominated by generalized frustration around affordability. Now voters are increasingly linking rising costs directly to presidential decisions — particularly surrounding Iran, energy prices, tariffs, and broader economic management.
The emotional tone has also hardened significantly. Earlier in the year, the dominant mood was fatigue and resignation. This latest period carries a stronger sense of anxiety, anger and foreboding. Voters are not simply reacting to current prices; they are increasingly bracing for another inflationary wave ahead.
Gas prices remain central to that fear. They account for 19% of negative conversation, but their significance extends far beyond fuel itself. Consumers repeatedly connect higher diesel and gasoline costs to groceries, freight, agriculture, utilities, and wider household bills. Following the economic shocks of Covid and Ukraine, many Americans now instinctively assume that geopolitical instability will eventually feed directly into the cost of everyday life.
That expectation creates a major political problem for the administration heading into the midterms. Once voters begin assuming that every geopolitical or policy shock will eventually push prices higher — and that nobody is able to stop it — economic pessimism becomes much harder to reverse.
Importantly, this is no longer simply about current affordability. The conversation increasingly reflects fear about where prices go next. Consumers appear highly sensitive to the possibility that rising fuel and transport costs could trigger a broader second-round increase across essential goods and services in the months ahead.
Politically, prolonged cost pressure is often more dangerous than a short-term economic shock. Temporary spikes can fade quickly if conditions stabilize. But sustained pressure — combined with the belief that another wave may still be coming — quickly erodes confidence in leadership and economic stewardship.
The key takeaway is that the cost-of-living crisis has moved beyond frustration with current prices alone. Increasingly, voters appear psychologically focused on the next round of increases before they have recovered from the last — and they are assigning political responsibility for that expectation in real time.
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About The Cost of Living Index
Most economic data captures outcomes after the fact and often fails to reflect how conditions are actually experienced. Our work instead tracks how Americans talk about the cost of living, job security and financial pressure in real time. This human-read data trains a proprietary language model that highlights early shifts in confidence and behavior at scale, before they appear in polling or government data — if at all — with clear implications for voting preferences and turnout in the 2026 midterms.