We Have Nothing Left to Give, But They're Raising the Prices Anyway
FRED shows 90% of households hold 32.8% of the wealth. Sector signals point to higher costs ahead.
There’s a pair of metrics from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) that I find my thoughts straying back to often;
This pie makes sense to me; and of course it does! Each class is named after the amount of households, after all, so it matches perfectly. Notice how very, very tiny the actual number of Top 0.1% households…
…And this pie hurts to see, because there’s no getting around the facts:
90% of the country holds 32.8% of the wealth.
10% of the country holds 67.2% of the wealth.
Perhaps it’s just me, but America doesn’t really look all that “great” when the richest 134,578 households have like 6X more money than the poorest 67,118,406 households. Since less than half of employees negotiate their salaries, trying to argue that 67 million households should simply “find better jobs” doesn’t work here.
And here’s the thing; these numbers are from Q1, meaning this statistic hasn’t been much affected by Trump 2.0 yet.
Americans have been screaming from the roof tops about the cost of living for years. Time and again, the economy was the number one issue to voters in the 2024 presidential election.
The Trump administration loves to wax poetic about the “mandate” they received, but they only refer to it in discussions of immigration and wasteful government spending… it’s such a shame they don’t show the same dedication toward their mandate to make life more livable for the VAST majority of Americans; that’s the issue we all could have come together on.
Instead, by many credible accounts, life in America is about to get much more expensive.
Reports Across Sectors are Worrisome
My readers know I’m a regular, blue-collar gal who just enjoys news and nerd-stuff… I’m no economist. Still, it felt urgent to write this article because I’m seeing warnings of higher prices coming out of a variety of industries; a variety wide enough to merit a touch of concern. I’ve gathered my sources together here and I’m sharing the snippets so you have an overview:
Health Insurance
KFF Health System Tracker - For 2026, across 312 insurers participating in the ACA Marketplaces from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, this analysis shows a median proposed premium increase of 18%, which is about 11 percentage points higher than last year. [Aug 6 2025]
***Fortune Magazine - Layered on top of that is a looming policy shift: the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits enacted in 2021 as part of pandemic relief. If Congress lets these subsidies lapse at the end of 2025, monthly out-of-pocket costs for subsidized enrollees are projected to jump roughly 75% on average. That hike is on top of, not instead of, insurers’ base premium increases. [Aug 13 2025]
Electricity
New York Times - Recent reports expect data centers will require expensive upgrades to the electric grid, a cost that will be shared with residents and smaller businesses through higher rates unless state regulators and lawmakers force tech companies to cover those expenses. [Aug 14 2025]
Automotive
Claims Journal - Roughly 44% of OEM parts used in collision repair are produced outside the United States, and many of these non– United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement-compliant parts are now subject to tariffs. As a result, OEM retail prices rose 2.1% from Q1 to Q2 2025, compared to a 1% increase during the same period in 2024. We have not seen the increase in parts pricing for aftermarket or recycled parts as of yet. [Jun 30 2025]
Kelley Blue Book - [New Car] Prices remain about $10,000 higher than five years ago. [Aug 15 2025]
Pets
NBC News - In Arizona, animal shelter operators are finding pets abandoned in parking lots or on the side of the road. In Virginia, an over-capacity shelter has taken to social media to call for adoptions urgently. And in Tennessee, one shelter said it is “drowning” in rescue dogs, forced to stack kennels on top of each other to provide space. …The price of pet care has risen dramatically. A Bank of America Institute report found that since 2019, prices of services like veterinary care and grooming have gone up 42%, with the cost of goods like food and treats surging 22%. Pet insurance is expensive, too. [Jul 28 2025]
Housing
Forbes - The fact that many prospective home buyers remain on the sidelines even with these improving conditions signals they’re holding out for more clarity on the economy and their own financial situations… Meanwhile, mortgage rates staying stuck in the upper 6% range isn’t helping to ease the affordability challenges buyers face, a strain that experts predict will persist for at least the remainder of 2025. [Aug 6 2025]
Car Insurance
Newsweek - In the first half of the year, rates remained steady nationwide and fell in 27 states, according to data by Insurify. However, experts say rates are likely to go up again as a result of President Donald Trump's economic policies. [Aug 12 2025]
Grocery
The Hill - Coffee prices sharply rose 25 percent over the past three months, according to inflation data released Tuesday. [Aug 17 2025]
CBS News - Food prices on the rise: The U.S. economy has a case of food-flation. Wholesale prices for fresh veggies soared by a record amount last month while grocery costs were up 2.2% compared to last year. Lisa Rozner reports on how consumers are dealing with rising costs. [Aug 17 2025]
Student Loans
Center for American Progress - The OBBBA eliminates all four of these [Biden-era] plans and offers borrowers only the RAP, which would dramatically increase payments, especially relative to SAVE. One analysis found that a typical borrower with a college degree would pay an additional $2,929 per year in student loan payments under RAP. [Jul 3 2025]
Working Class Ouch
The whole reason he won is because America believed he would lower prices. It’s rather treasonous, in my opinion, to enact policies that do the very opposite of what you know voters want… lower prices.
America’s biggest issue, however, is rather obvious, right? We saw it at the very start of the article:
We don’t have anything left to give.
It’s not in a we’re exhausted sense, and it’s not a vibe of we just don’t trust you anymore (though we are and we don’t):
You saw the pie. Ninety percent (90%) of the country has less than a third of all the wealth.
The Trump Tax (my forever name for the OBBBA) is all-but guaranteed to suck even more wealth from bottom to top, and I find that to be evil in ways I don’t even have words for.
I have no idea what that pie will look like a year from now, but I’m not optimistic. I fear the vast majority of America is about to have a lot less pie.