Despite claims by the outgoing Joseph Biden government and liberal big-business media that inflation is now at “acceptable” levels, working people continue to face the scourge of high prices for basic necessities, from food to energy to rent. Wealthy dabblers in Wall Street and their upper-middle-class hangers-on may be comfortable with the prices of their condos and winter homes and other symbols of their status under capitalism, but working-class families continue to be battered.
Grocery prices are 27% higher now than they were five years ago, and for some crucial items they’re much higher. Eggs have soared 81% in the past four years, beef is up 37% and breakfast juices up 32%, to name a few.
Government-calculated inflation numbers, which have ranged from 2.4% to 3.5% in 2024, are based on the consumer price index’s “basket” of items, which includes furniture and new cars. But most workers aren’t buying new sofas or cars, but every week have to cover necessities like food, housing and medical care, prices of which continue to rise at rates much higher than the CPI’s average. For households with the lowest incomes, this hits especially hard, forcing workers to shell out 71% of their wages on basic necessities, the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics admits.
The cost-of-living adjustment for workers on Social Security went up a measly 2.5% for 2025. This is below even the government’s understated inflation figures, meaning a cut in the real income millions depend upon each month. On top of that, in 2025 the government now automatically deducts an even higher amount out of your Social Security check for Medicare premiums.
Rising credit-card debt
In response to price hikes, most working people have no choice but to put more of their purchases on credit cards. But the annual interest rate banks charge is now over 20%, sinking many more of us deeper into debt.
U.S. credit-card delinquencies last year jumped to the highest level since 2010. Amounts owed on these cards rose a combined $270 billion in 2022 and 2023. This pushed overall credit-card debt above $1 trillion in mid-2023. It’s a profit bonanza for the banks. Unpaid credit-card balances meant they took in $170 billion in interest over the last year.
“High-income households are fine, but the bottom third of U.S. consumers are tapped out,” Mark Zandi, head of Moody’s Analytics, told the Financial Times. “Their savings rate right now is zero.”
These statistics underscore the fact that the U.S. is sharply class-divided.
Another symptom of the deepening capitalist crisis that is painfully obvious in the country’s major cities is the huge rise in homelessness. The number of workers pushed into the streets rose by 18% last year, on top of a 12% increase in 2023. And rents continue to go up.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated a year ago that more than 770,000 people were homeless across the country. But this severely undercounts the reality.
The government report admits there is a nearly 40% increase in the number of entire families who are “unhoused,” as politically correct liberals like to call it. Over 146,000 of the students in the New York City public schools — one out of eight — didn’t have a regular place to live in the last year.
Meanwhile, U.S. industry ended 2024 with a slump in production. In fact, over the past 12 months durable-goods orders declined by 5.2%.
This has fueled moves by the bosses to defend their profits by squeezing workers on the job, seeking to boost their productivity. This means speedup and increasingly unsafe working conditions. For the fifth quarter in a row, productivity has increased by 2% or more, a Wall Street Journal article gloated Jan. 2.
These conditions are behind the increase in strike actions and union protests today — from flight attendants to hotel workers and Starbucks baristas. Workers are turning to their unions, laying the groundwork for a broader fight on behalf of all workers as we face the brutal effects of the crisis of the capitalist system.