Majority of Americans Struggling to Afford Gas, Groceries

In a survey [1] conducted by Harris Poll at the beginning of June, 52 percent of Americans reported having difficulty affording gas and 51 percent reported having difficulty affording groceries. Sizable minorities (between 41 and 46 percent) also reported having trouble making loan payments, paying their utility bills, and affording housing, car insurance, healthcare, and health insurance.

A whopping 95 percent of respondents agreed that the country is facing an “affordability crisis” — in sharp contrast to President Trump, who has claimed that “inflation is plummeting, income is rising” and that working people’s concerns about affordable housing are “of minor importance.” Trump’s decision to start a war with Iran earlier this year has sent gas prices soaring, and the tariffs he has imposed have contributed significantly to increases in prices for many foods, including beef and coffee.

Soaring gas prices have been a boon to one group, however: the oil industry, which has made record profits over the three months ending in June. Chevron reported $12.2 billion in profits, its highest ever and more than five times the profits it was making during the same quarter last year. ExxonMobil made profits of $14.5 billion, Shell of $10 billion, and Aramco $32.69 billion.

And although over $100 billion has been paid back to companies since the Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration’s “liberation day” tariffs illegal, precious little of that has been returned to consumers in the way of refunds of lowered costs.

No-Vacation Nation

The U.S. is alone among wealthy nations in not requiring employers to provide any paid vacation for their workers. A new study [2] by the Center for Economic and Policy Research finds that, absent legal minimums, bosses in the U.S. only provide an average of 10 days of paid vacation per year — below the legal minimum required by almost all other comparable nations.

The majority of countries which are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — all, like the U.S., wealthy democracies — require employers to provide at least 20 days of paid vacation per year. These requirements apply to all employees, including part-time workers. Great Britain tops the list with a minimum of 28 paid days off per year, while the lowest requirements, in Canada and Japan, are 10 days per year.

Paid time off in the U.S. is not only meagre, it is unevenly distributed, with 57 percent of the lowest-paid workers, and 62 percent of part-time workers, receiving no paid time off at all.

On August 6, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), reintroduced the Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act, which would guarantee a minimum of ten days of vacation to every worker in the U.S. “It is beyond unacceptable that in the year 2026, the United States remains the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid vacation time to workers,” said Sanders. “This legislation would put an end to that international embarrassment.”

Retirement at Risk

Twenty years ago, Congress passed the misnamed “Pension Protection Act.” Far from “protecting” any pension, this legislation opened the door for employers to drop their defined benefit pension plans. For the last two decades, employers have been busy doing just that, replacing guaranteed pensions with riskier 401(k) savings plans, which have now become the norm.

Now Wall Street wants a bigger piece of the $10 trillion in workers’ 401(k) plans, and the Trump administration is rolling back regulations [3] to help them move workers’ savings into risker and less-regulated investments like private equity and cryptocurrency. This will mean more profits for Wall Street, more fees for financial firms, and less retirement security for workers.

The Trump administration has also cut funding [4] from the Employee Benefits Security Administration, a Labor Department watchdog agency charged with overseeing retirement funds. The staffing cuts will “make it harder for people to bring even legitimate claims against plan fiduciaries,” said Timothy Hauser, a high-ranking staffer at the agency who retired last year.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have introduced the PROMISE Act, legislation which would allow Congress to slash or privatize Social Security through an unelected commission. Instead of cutting benefits or turning Social Security funds over to Wall Street, Congress could apply the Social Security payroll tax on all income above $250,000 a year. In 2023, the Social Security Administration estimated that this would make Social Security solvent for 75 years without raising taxes on the 91 percent of Americans who make less than $250,000 a year.

The Solution? Join a Union

In July, the Economic Policy Institute released a report [5] which addresses the question: what would happen to our economy if every worker who wanted to be represented by a union actually was?

While union membership increased slightly in 2025, it still remains around 10 percent, approximately a third of what union membership was in the 1950s. If unionization were to return to 1950s levels, the report’s authors find, workers would see their incomes rise an average of 14.5 percent, racial wage gaps would narrow significantly, and far more people would have health insurance.

The report is based on restoring the 1950s unionization rate of 30 percent; if every one of the 43 percent of non-union workers who wanted to be part of a union was organized, the rate would rise much higher, to 48.7 percent. But even getting to 30 percent would have huge effects, and would benefit not only workers but entire communities. As the report’s authors note, “States with high union density invest more in public education, have higher unemployment insurance recipiency rates, and have all adopted Medicaid expansion” — so tripling union membership would benefit not only workers, but also students, families, and the unemployed. Unions also protect democracy by boosting voter turnout, equipping working people with civic skills, and actively defending voting rights.

Overall, the report finds, tripling union membership would make the country far more equal by shifting $1.2 trillion from corporate profits into workers’ pockets, which “would reverse a third of the increase in inequality experienced since 1979.”