Americans’ growing frustration over high prices has defined many political campaigns ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Rising costs of healthcare, gas and groceries during President Donald Trump’s second term have put Republicans on defense, not only in Washington, but in statehouse and gubernatorial races across the country.

As the political environment continues to sour for Republicans, a new analysis released by the Urban Institute on Monday underscores just how expensive everyday life has become in America: Gas and electricity prices are rising much faster than paychecks. Housing, childcare and healthcare are becoming a bigger strain for millions of people. 

And affordability pressure is worsening in once-affordable havens such as Atlanta; Louisville, Kentucky; and Rochester, New York, where costs of housing, groceries and healthcare are increasing faster than the national average.

The latest installment of The American Affordability Tracker from the left-leaning think tank details how costs of food, housing, energy and healthcare have changed across all 50 states over recent years. High prices are pinching people across income brackets, with an estimated 49% of families unable to afford the basic costs of living. That’s according to Urban Institute’s true cost of economic security calculation, which measures how much is needed to live securely.

“We’re not saying that 49% of people are poor. We’re saying that they’re not secure,” said Gregory Acs, an Urban Institute fellow who worked on the research project. “Even if they’re paying all their bills, they’re paying all their bills at best.”

He said the analysis confirms that the economic angst so many people feel is justified — despite strong national economic indicators such as low unemployment and growing gross domestic product.

“They are not crazy. They’re not making it up,” Acs said. “They’re not being marketed into feeling bad. They really do have struggles.”

Among other findings, the report shows that average annual childcare costs for two young children have risen $6,600 over the past decade. Since January 2025, gas prices have risen by 33% — an average increase of $1.02 per gallon nationally. And premiums for benchmark plans on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace are up 22% since last year, now averaging $611 per month.

Affordability politics

Those struggles have become a political liability for Republicans, who control the White House, both chambers of Congress, most state legislatures and a majority of governor’s offices. 

All midterm elections, as a referendum on the sitting president, are difficult for incumbents in the majority. But this cycle is particularly charged because of Trump’s promises to improve the economy during his 2024 campaign, said Todd Belt, a professor of political management at The George Washington University.

“He hasn’t done that. In fact, in a lot of ways, he’s made things worse,” Belt said, citing Trump’s unilateral war in Iran and tariff policies — both of which have driven up costs. “And so Donald Trump is bringing down the Republican ticket.”

Some Democrats have proposed new policies to help lower costs, following the lead of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani whose winning campaign last year promised free buses and childcare. But many others are simply benefiting from the sinking approval ratings of the president — driven largely by high prices. 

“For the Democrats, it’s enough to not be Donald Trump,” Belt said. “People are feeling it, and you can’t out-message it. You can’t out-message what people are feeling in their finances and what they know prices to be as they go to the gas station every week, as they see it in the grocery store.”

Republican officials have recognized the political drag of rising prices. 

Vice President JD Vance has publicly acknowledged Americans’ growing frustration with high prices, particularly for gas, telling voters “we’re working on it,” during a CBS News town hall in Michigan earlier this month. 

But Trump has often downplayed such concerns, calling affordability “a hoax” promulgated by Democrats. Campaigning for Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall last week in an unexpectedly competitive race, Trump blamed previous President Joe Biden for rising prices. Trump pledged that the war in Iran would end soon.

“And when it does, you’re going to see the biggest drop in oil that anyone’s ever seen,” he said. 

Wide-ranging impacts

Rising prices are hitting consumers and businesses alike.

Earlier this month, Small Business for America’s Future, a coalition of business owners across the country, released results of a new survey that found many small employers are struggling with high costs of utilities, fuel, business supplies and employee healthcare.

Nearly two-thirds of the 1,171 businesses owners surveyed said they had recently cut or skipped their own pay to keep their operations afloat. Nearly half said customers are spending significantly less, and more than two-thirds said they had delayed, canceled or scaled back investments because of uncertainty about federal economic policy. 

Walt Rowen, co-chair of that coalition, said in a news release his own business exemplified the challenges facing Main Street operations across the country. He’s the president of the 116-year-old Susquehanna Glass Company in Columbia, Pennsylvania. Tariffs have disrupted supply chains, he said, and driven up heating oil costs.

“We’ve lived through the Depression, wars, and recessions,” his statement said. “Heating my factory in this current economy is some of the hardest math I’ve ever had to do, and I’m expecting the bill to jump 30% to 40% this winter.”

High prices are hitting consumers across demographic and geographic borders.

Acs, the Urban Institute researcher, said rising prices squeeze more than just the poorest Americans. Many middle income earners are struggling to cover the costs of healthcare, higher education and housing, “feeling like they’re on a treadmill at best,” he said. 

The Urban Institute’s recent analysis also highlighted rising price challenges in regions long considered affordable. 

In Arizona, gas and electricity price increases are outstripping other parts of the country: Arizonans pay an average of $219 per month for electricity, the highest in the U.S. and nearly $50 more than the national average. 

In the battleground state of Wisconsin, where gas and electricity costs are well below the national average, parents face disproportionately high costs for childcare: Parents there spend an average of $30,800 per year for care for two young children — $6,900 more than the national average.

“I think there is an old story that affordability really is a coastal problem,” Acs said. “What we’re trying to illustrate is that it’s not just high-cost areas where costs are an issue. Costs are an issue throughout the country.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

Inflation grew to a 3.7% annual rate in September, according to an Oct. 14 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 3.4% in August. 

In the last consumer price inflation report before midterm elections, with voters already fed up with higher prices, September’s number was the highest since May, when it was 4.2%.

“Inflation has wiped out wage gains for 6 months now,” Heather Long, the chief economist for Navy Federal, wrote in a social media post. “It’s a financial squeeze. Americans are trying to work more hours to make up for it, but many are still falling behind.”

Spikes in energy prices were largely responsible: Gas is now up 34% for the year, and fuel oil, which includes diesel, is up 72% as the Iran war drags on. 

States including Georgia, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Utah have enacted gas tax relief measures recently to battle rising prices. North Carolina expects to lose more than $362 million in tax revenue for the fiscal year because of a gas tax holiday. 

New York state estimates fuel oil prices are up 67% from last year, with home heating oil at $6.21 a gallon as of this month. Connecticut announced plans Oct. 13 for additional state aid for home heating assistance, partly because of high prices for delivered oil.  

Other than energy, the largest factor was food away from home, up 3.5%. The only decreases were medical care products, down 3.3%, and used cars and trucks, up for the month but still down 1.5% for the year. So-called “core” inflation outside of volatile food and energy was a more modest 2.6%. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Household water bills are increasing faster than inflation and income, according to a new analysis.

The environmental advocacy nonprofit Food and Water Watch analyzed water bill data among the nation’s 500 largest community water providers. Those systems serve a collective 155 million people — nearly half the nation’s population.

Between 2015 and 2025, water bills increased by 62% on average across those water providers. That was faster than the overall inflation rate and more than two times the rate of grocery price increases over the same period. Food and Water Watch found that water bills increased 19% faster than household incomes, meaning people are spending a greater share of their earnings on water.

In Louisiana, Maryland, New Hampshire and West Virginia, water bills grew about twice as fast as household incomes, the analysis found.

Costs varied widely across the country: In Idaho, the average household spent $286 on water bills last year. In West Virginia, the average cost was $1,383. The analysis found for-profit water companies charge more than publicly owned water providers (Food and Water Watch advocates against private ownership of water systems).

The analysis projects that costs will rise further as climate-change driven drought and natural disasters threaten water supplies. It also pointed to growing infrastructure needs that are estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars across the country.

“Industrial pollution, aging infrastructure, and federal disinvestment are fueling a crisis for the nation’s water systems,” the report said.

The American Water Works Association, which includes more than 4,300 North American water utilities, estimates American drinking water systems will need as much as $2.4 trillion over the next 25 years to sustain and modernize infrastructure. If those costs are covered solely by users, bills could more than double by 2050, the association projected.

Aside from abandoning water system privatization, Food and Water Watch recommends that state and local governments support local control of water systems, hold polluters accountable for contamination and prevent the tech, fossil fuel and agriculture sectors from passing on costs to residential water users. The organization also calls on Congress to fund water improvement projects that can help communities meet federal water standards.

The report comes as more Americans struggle with the high costs of electricity, gas, groceries and housing.

Electric bills continued to soar and millions of families that heat their homes with oil are facing a much more expensive winter. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state employees administering federal energy assistance programs, estimates that heating oil costs will be about 50% higher than last winter.

Though federal forecasters predict a warmer winter, wars in Iran and Ukraine have greatly disrupted petroleum markets, leading to quick price hikes.

Households in the Northeast, which use more than 80% of the nation’s heating oil, will be most affected. But the association projects American home heating costs will rise an average of 8.7% this winter — more than twice the rate of inflation.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

Jobs across the United States rose by 29,000 in September, a disappointing result as recent growth was also revised down in Friday’s monthly jobs report, the last one before midterm elections. 

September growth was a large dip from a strong August number that was revised down from 162,000 to 133,000 in the new report. July jobs were also revised from an increase of 21,000 to a decrease of 10,000, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly report. 

“This is a textbook weak jobs report,” economist Kathryn Anne Edwards said on a live chat on Substack after the release.

The fact that earnings, up 3%, are not keeping up with 3.4% inflation, means “We can say pretty categorically that things got worse for workers this month,” Edwards said.

Average hourly earnings increased slightly to $37.81, up 3% from a year ago. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1% in August, but still a decrease from 4.4% in September 2025. 

Speaking on Fox News, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, tried to frame the joblessness increase as a result of a labor market that more potential workers have returned to since August. 

“People are seeing the strong labor market and they’re saying, ‘Oh I need to get back in the labor force because I’m going to make so much money.’ That’s one reason why the unemployment rate just ticked in a different direction,” Hassett said. 

The labor force increased by 485,000 people in September, according to the report, but that’s still a decrease of a million from September 2025. . 

Black unemployment jumped 1 point to 7% for the month, though it also is down from 7.6% in September 2025. 

Health care jobs led September job growth at 16,700. That’s still a slowdown from an average of 33,000 per month over the past year as hospitals continue to seek financial stability. Some health systems had layoffs last month in Vermont and New Hampshire. Government jobs dropped by 17,000, mostly in local governments. 

The freight economy has been reeling from the impact of high diesel prices, and job losses have been announced in that industry. Nonetheless the federal statistics show a monthly job increase of 2,600 in September for truck transportation jobs, but a drop of 4,100 in warehousing and storage jobs. 

An alternative jobs report from payroll processor ADP found a 90,000-job gain in September, with more than half of those coming gains in the Mid-Atlantic region of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.  

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to kick off a month-long blitz of campaign stops with a Thursday rally in deep-red Oklahoma before heading to other states with strong Republican leanings.

The first events in the closing stretch of the midterm election campaign suggest his strength with swing voters is limited, as even some Republican candidates seek distance, political analysts said. 

Trump’s low approval ratings amid growing consumer costs, spiraling gas prices and an unpopular war in Iran have put U.S. Senate races in typically GOP-leaning states like Alaska and Iowa in play.

After the Oklahoma rally, the president will travel to Alabama and Ohio through the weekend. On Monday, he will be in Nebraska.

He has vowed he would make another stop in Texas soon as part of 32 days of travel before the Nov. 3 elections that will determine control of Congress. 

Vice President JD Vance also rallied voters in Texas on Wednesday before a planned event in Florida on Thursday.

The red-state itinerary makes it appear Trump will be used to rally the base, rather than attempt to win over voters who switch preferences from one election to another, said Chandler James, a political science professor at the University of Oregon. 

“These are places where Trump has the most support that he’s retained, and probably has the most influence,” he said. “Trump still has a lot of sway within the Republican Party, and he has a pretty sizable political base, many of whom don’t traditionally show up for elections besides when Trump is on the ballot.”

In more traditionally contested states, such as North Carolina, Michigan or New Hampshire, the median voter may be further to the left and have a lower opinion of Trump, James said. 

“He can still help, but he has to do so in different ways,” Christopher Stout, a political science professor at Oregon State University, said. “Going to places where you might be able to recruit supporters rather than places where it’d be easy for Democrats to say, ‘Look how closely this candidate is tied to a president whose popularity is pretty low.’”

Trump’s approval rating was hovering Wednesday near 37%, with 60% disapproving, according to The New York Times polling average.

‘They all want me’

Trump told reporters Tuesday he was strongly in demand for campaign appearances.

“I’m one person. They all want me to go campaign,” he said. “In about two days, I’m starting a literally 32-day tour. … I’m going to Texas. I’m going to Ohio. I’m going to all different places.”

Candidates from a president’s party typically face strong headwinds in midterm elections, a phenomenon that is likely to be especially true this year as Trump faces historically low approval ratings, James said. 

Republicans could minimize that disadvantage, while still appealing to Trump’s supporters, by keeping him focused on redder states and districts.

The base-focused strategy could also help recruit volunteers who can work across state lines or raise money, Stout said.

Texting and other technology allows volunteers to be active remotely, meaning that volunteers fired up in Oklahoma or Alabama could be helping mobilize Republican voters in Georgia or Iowa.

No longer a change agent

But there are indications Trump’s support is cracking even in red areas.

U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican from Florida, released a campaign ad in September in which she said Trump’s immigration policy had “gone too far.” 

Iowa U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, criticized the Iran war in a social media post last week.

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter in late September moved Salazar’s race to “lean Republican,” a shift signaling a more competitive race. The open Senate seat in Iowa is rated as a tossup, although the state’s entire congressional delegation is currently Republican.

Even Ken Paxton, the far-right Texas attorney general who is running for U.S. Senate, privately groused that Trump’s two-night midterm convention in his state hurt his polling in the close race against Democrat James Talarico, according to leaked audio obtained by The New York Times. 

Paxton, a polarizing figure who defeated the more moderate incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary this year, also faces a tossup race against Talarico, even though the last Democrat to win a Senate seat in the reliably Republican state resigned to run for vice president in 1988.

Part of the challenge for Republicans is that swing voters in recent elections are looking for change, Stout said. That has helped Trump in the elections he ran while not in office, but that advantage has evaporated.

“A lot of those swing voters, many of them just want change,” Stout said. “They want things to be different. So in 2016 and in 2024, he represented that change. In 2026, he represents the status quo. And so if people want change, he’s not the person you want there.”

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve raised interest rates Wednesday for the first time in three years as inflation continues to dog the economy, largely driven by soaring gas and fuel oil prices while the war in Iran drags on.

The central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee voted 12-0 to increase its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point, reaching the new range from 3.75% to 4% and making the cost of borrowing more expensive for Americans.

The committee released an upbeat statement touting economic growth at “a solid pace.”

“While uncertainty remains elevated owing, in part, to geopolitical developments, domestic spending has been resilient. Productivity growth is strong, and capital investment is robust. Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little,” according to the statement released Wednesday afternoon.

“Inflation remains elevated. Today’s policy action will support a timelier return to the Committee’s 2 percent goal. The Committee will deliver price stability,” the statement continued.

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, four months into his tenure, described Wednesday’s unanimous decision to raise rates as “sober.”

“The plain fact is that inflation is too high, and has been for too long,” Warsh said during a press conference following the Fed’s meeting.

“This summer’s inflation readings do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved. … Too many categories are still posting increases above 3 percent on both a six and 12-month basis,” Warsh said.

Trump campaign for lower rates

President Donald Trump publicly pressured and name-called Warsh’s predecessor Jerome Powell for months for not lowering interest rates. 

The public attacks escalated into a federal probe of Powell and the Fed for costly renovations at the Fed’s headquarters in Washington. The administration eventually dropped the investigation.

Trump criticized the rate increase on his Truth Social platform Wednesday afternoon, saying the U.S. rates “should be 1%, or less, because we are the Best Credit in the World — BY FAR.”

“Our Country is BOOMING with new Investment! If we stopped Trading with every country that we have a Deficit with, which is most of them, we would make, at least, 1.5 Trillion Dollars a year. The word “Deficit” is nothing more than a fancy word for LOSS. We are “carrying” almost every country in the World, and that cannot go on any longer. LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST!,” he wrote.

Warsh declined to answer questions from reporters about Trump’s previous calls for lower interest rates.

“Part of the independence of the Federal Reserve is we stay in our lane,” Warsh said.

The interest hike comes less than a week after the government’s latest consumer price index revealed the cost of food, energy, housing and other goods and services rose 0.4% from July to August. The cost of all items over the past year has risen 3.4%.

Rep. Jason Smith, the Republican chair of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, criticized the decision, saying in a statement that “interest rates should be coming down, not going up.”

The Missouri Republican praised the Trump-led “big beautiful bill” tax law passed last summer for delivering “larger paychecks” to Americans, and he blamed former President Joe Biden for past higher inflation.

“After years of elevated borrowing costs, a rate increase is the opposite of the relief families and small businesses need. As President Trump works to restore stability in the Middle East and bring down energy prices, the Fed should recognize the progress,” Smith said in a written statement Wednesday afternoon. 

Soaring gas prices

Spiking energy prices caused by the war in Iran were the main driver behind higher costs. Gasoline alone rose 3.9% over the month of August. 

As of Wednesday, Americans were paying an average of nearly $4.37 a gallon at the pump, according to AAA. Diesel prices reached a record high of $6.31.

The price of a barrel of oil surged above $100 in recent days, including Wednesday afternoon, when it reached $105, as fighting flared in the Middle East. 

The United States and Iran continue launching rockets in the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s petroleum traveled prior to the war. U.S. Central Command claimed Sept. 8 that it “destroyed” five Iranian crude oil carriers as part of its naval blockade aimed at damaging Iran’s economy.

The conflict spilled over in July into another key waterway for Saudi Arabian oil exports. Iran-backed Houthi rebels restarted an assault on commercial vessels in the Red Sea for the first time since 2024, and are fighting for control of the Bab al-Mandab strait. The group also directly struck targets in Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally, beginning in July, and is threatening more strikes, according to Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree. The United Nations Security Council is warning of the likelihood of a humanitarian crisis. 

When asked by a reporter at Wednesday’s press conference how incremental rate hikes will help when geopolitical events do not show signs of improvement, Warsh said the Fed “cannot affect any individual price, whether it be oil prices, whether it be foodstuffs at the grocery store.”

“But what we can do and will do is ensure that any change in relative prices don’t broaden out, don’t have second and third order effects on the economy. That’s what we’re tasked to do, and that’s what we will do,” Warsh said.

The official poverty rate in the United States dipped slightly by half a percentage point last year to a historic low of 10.2%, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday.

The supplemental poverty rate, a more holistic figure that includes an individual’s non-cash resources, remained essentially unchanged at 13.1%, according to the bureau’s annual poverty report. The report measured 2025 numbers in comparison with 2024 and previous years.

The median household income for 2025 rose 2.6% from the previous year to $87,460, the highest on record, according to the bureau’s annual income report.

Some experts cautioned that the data doesn’t reflect the effects of new federal policy changes that will be hitting households hard this year, and that the United States should expect grimmer statistics in next September’s report. Most significantly, the massive tax and spending bill passed by Congress last year slashed Medicaid, food assistance and other public benefits that have kept millions in the country hovering above the poverty line.

This week’s numbers are not all that surprising, but they may not reflect an entirely positive picture, said Steven Durlauf, a professor and director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago.

The supplemental poverty measure, he noted, is more all encompassing because it includes cash and noncash benefits and expenses, such as taxes and medical expenses, whereas the official poverty measure focuses just on cash resources. 

“There’s some basic good news there, and that is that median household income, you know, substantially increased 2.6% after inflation is nothing to to sneeze at,” Durlauf said. But he said the fact that the supplemental measure hasn’t budged could mean that people with lower incomes, and who may rely on more government benefits, aren’t really benefiting from “an economy that’s running hot.” 

Census data show women in full-time, year round work saw higher median earnings from last year by about 3%, while men in the same position saw a decline of 0.9%. 

And while it’s true there was growth in wage income this year, Durlauf said, he expects the numbers will be worse next year for people from more marginalized backgrounds. He pointed to “inequality-increasing” policies such as tax cuts for the rich, cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, and major cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program for people with lower incomes. 

“The main issue for most individuals is going to be the fact that prices and inflation is outstripping wage growth, and so that’s obviously some diminution of real incomes for some people,” Durlauf said. 

U.S. Census Bureau data also show 92.1% of people were insured in 2025, as compared with 92% in 2024 – reflecting the relatively flat uninsurance curve in the U.S. since 2020, when 91.4% of people were insured. 

The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, estimated that roughly 15 million people would become uninsured by 2034, well more than the current estimate of 1.3 million uninsured people. 

Additionally, the number of children receiving SNAP benefits fell by 1.2 million between July 2025 and July 2026, according to an August analysis released by the left-leaning research group Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

“The combination of the erratic fiscal policies, the effect on energy prices via this destabilization of the Middle East, and to be blunt, the utterly irresponsible fiscal policies of the country in terms of budget deficits, are not conducive to an economic environment in which the economy does well in terms of the usual ways we think about growth,” Durlauf said. 

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with Canada is creating headaches for Republicans ahead of November’s midterms as high prices remain a top concern among voters.

Responding to Trump’s increased tariffs, Canadian officials have said they’re deliberately targeting goods from states where there are close elections. And GOP candidates in Kansas, Maine and Ohio among others have been forced to balance supporting Trump with defending local manufacturers.

Trump has repeatedly targeted Canada, traditionally a close American ally, since returning to the White House last year. But his August move to impose 50% tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian imports has heightened tensions, pushing Canada to retaliate with its own tariffs on hundreds of American-made products that went into effect Tuesday.

Nearly $28 billion in U.S. exports to Canada now carry up to 50% tariffs, a dollar-for-dollar match on Trump’s taxes on Canadian goods imposed last month, according to Canadian officials. 

Trump has long argued that Canada is taking advantage of the United States because of a longstanding trade deficit — meaning more Canadian products are imported here than American products are exported to Canada.

“They don’t pay for anything, and they want to be treated like a state, but they’re not a state,” Trump said last month after trade talks fell apart.

The fallout could affect consumers and businesses across the country, but Canada targeted many of its tariffs to inflict political pain just ahead of the crucial U.S. midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. 

The trade standoff has put Republican candidates in a tough position with an electorate already fed up with high prices and underscores ongoing concerns about how federal trade policy will affect American business and state economies.

On Labor Day, Trump threatened to halt sales of the Canadian airplane manufacturer Bombardier, saying its planes weren’t good enough and the company was treating America as a “piggybank.”

That became immediate political fodder in Kansas, home to Bombardier’s U.S. headquarters and competitive races for governor and U.S. Senate this year. The company employs more than 1,000 people in Wichita, the state’s most populous city that calls itself the “Air Capital of the World” with a local economy dominated by aerospace and aviation manufacturing. 

Trump’s trade war with Canada escalates as new tariffs launch

The state’s senior Republican U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran immediately defended Bombardier, as did Ty Masterson, the Republican nominee for governor and current state Senate president. But the issue has put pressure on the state’s junior Sen. Roger Marshall, a close Trump ally running for reelection in a competitive race. 

“We cannot allow this chaotic economic policy to continue to hurt Kansans; they deserve so much better. As your Senator, I will always stand up for Kansas workers,” the Democratic nominee in the race, Adam Hamilton, wrote on X Monday. 

On Tuesday, Marshall said he would fight to keep Bombardier’s jobs in Kansas, posting on social media, “I’ve already taken that concern inside the Oval Office.” Marshall said he agreed with Trump’s aim of bringing more manufacturing jobs, particularly in Bombardier’s case because the company sells half its products in the United States.

Tariffs on Canadian and American goods are poised to especially hurt Northern and Midwestern states, according to an analysis from Oxford Economics. It identified North Dakota, Montana, Michigan, Illinois and Vermont as the states most likely to be affected because they trade the most with Canada. 

Minnesota State Auditor Julie Blaha, a Democrat, said the trade feud is just the latest federal move to push up costs for businesses, consumers and local governments. Her office oversees some $56 billion in local government spending through financial integrity audits and budget analyses. She said Minnesota cities and townships have had no choice but to raise property taxes as they encounter rising prices.

“It’s just one wave after another. And it’s piling up,” she said. “All these rising costs are just coming home to roost, and they’re hitting Main Street.”

Minnesota shares a 547-mile border with Canada. Blaha said the state’s crucial agricultural industry is especially threatened as businesses constantly send products back and forth for processing. She highlighted General Mills, the maker of well-known cereals, including Cheerios. The firm buys Canadian grain that is processed in Minneapolis before being distributed to domestic cereal plants and sold across the U.S. and Canada. 

Grain is not on Canada’s list of targeted products for retaliatory tariffs, but the country did enact new tariffs on agricultural equipment, dairy and other food products. 

“These tariffs have a bigger impact than just one just one hit on a price,” she said. 

Canada’s political pressure

Canada’s retaliatory tariffs were aimed at pressuring the White House by targeting certain states and industries.

“We’re being wise and strategic to put political pressure,” Canada’s Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said last week. 

Canadian data show countermeasures will hit Ohio harder than any other state, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Ohio is home to one of the most competitive Senate races this cycle as Republican Sen. Jon Husted defends his seat from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. 

Husted has largely defended Trump’s tariffs in the Senate. In an August interview with MS Now, he acknowledged the president’s decision-making was not in line with how he would negotiate, but declined to second guess Trump’s stance on Canada. 

Canadian tariffs to further raise prices, a top concern for voters

“It depends on how it ends,” the senator said. “If we get a good deal, both Canada and America can come out of this well, but it’s going to require both sides.”

Canada is Ohio’s biggest export market, sending $17.5 billion in goods across the border — roughly a third of the state’s total exports. More than half of the state’s exports to Canada come from the equipment and machinery and the transportation industries. Ohio is a leading producer of automobiles, an industry deeply affected by tariffs because of interconnected supply chains that span American, Canadian and Mexican factories. 

Trump’s tariff “decision is going to make it very difficult for folks in the automobile supply chain to be able to succeed in Ohio,” Rob Moore, principal at public policy firm Scioto Analysis, told the Ohio Capital Journal.

While Canada’s countermeasures were politically targeted, they will sweep across the country, affecting solidly conservative and liberal states. 

Connecticut State Treasurer Erick Russell, a Democrat, said the trade war will especially hurt New England states that trade more with Canada. He said the tariffs could raise prices of everything from electricity to consumer goods. 

Though tariffs will hit businesses and consumers first, Russell said they will eventually put more strain on local and state government budgets.

And the president’s on-and-off-again history with imposing and rescinding tariffs injects more uncertainty for both business and government, he said.

“Where things are right now, there isn’t any certainty or clarity around where this is ultimately going to land,” he said. “What is consistent through all of this is that consumers in Connecticut and all across the country are going to continue to pay for this tariff war.”

Concerns across New England states

The trade standoff could further hurt New England’s tourism industry that depends on steady Canadian traffic. 

In New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, tourism is big business year-round as travelers flock to beaches in the summer, leaf peeping in the autumn and skiing in the winter. Those businesses have suffered a drop in Canadian visitors amid Trump’s ongoing aggression with the country.

Steve Wright, general manager of Jay Peak Resort in Vermont’s Green Mountains, recently assured Canadians that they were welcome to the resort that sits just a few miles from the border and a roughly two-hour drive from Montreal.

“The border may feel different right now,” Wright wrote online. “We do not. You are our neighbors. You are our friends. You are part of this place.” 

Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott recently characterized the president’s executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America as “petty and disappointing.” Scott, who is favored in polls to win reelection in November, said the trade war harms communities on both sides of the border.

“Further escalating tensions does nothing to help American or Canadian families and businesses,” he added. 

In neighboring Maine, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins has criticized the tariffs and urged the administration to resolve its dispute with Canada. A Republican in a competitive race for reelection, Collins grew up just 20 miles from the Canadian border. 

Troy Jackson, her Democratic opponent, has blamed Collins for not stopping Trump’s trade policies. 

Last week, Collins told reporters that the White House viewed tariffs in a macro sense without appreciating how damaging they are to border states such as Maine. Collins said Trump’s tariffs were already hurting local governments that rely on Canada for imported salt to treat roads in winter and could further hurt the state’s crucial lumber and blueberry industries.

While Maine’s important lobster industry was spared retaliatory tariffs, Canada did impose 50% tariffs on wood products and agricultural products. 

“Canada is not China. It is not an adversarial nation,” Collins said. “It is our closest ally, our neighbor, our friend. And our economy is so intertwined with Canada that I am very worried about what the impact will be.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

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Click here to read highlights from the story

• Free, simple tools can help people measure the change in inflation and see whether their pay is keeping up. 
• Experts Wisconsin Watch spoke to said that if your wage hasn’t changed and inflation rises, your real earnings decrease. 
• Workers can use inflation calculators to seek a raise if their real wages have dropped.

Inflation hit a three-year high in May, leaving a growing number of Americans struggling to afford necessities. The rate has since slowed a bit, but most prices aren’t likely to come down. Analysts say “affordability” could be one of the deciding issues in this fall’s midterm elections. 

But while we all notice the spike at the gas pump and the cash register, many people may not realize they can use simple, free tools to quantify the change and figure out whether their pay is keeping up.  

Wisconsin Watch talked to two experts about how and why to use inflation calculators. Here’s what they told us.

What is inflation and how do we measure it?

Inflation is a measure of how much prices have risen in a given period. Some increase in prices is to be expected — the Federal Reserve aims for 2% inflation when it sets interest rates. When prices rise quickly, consumers and businesses may struggle to buy what they need. 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases monthly inflation reports showing how prices have changed over the month and the year. The most widely used of those measures is the consumer price index, which shows the change in “prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.” In other words, it’s the weighted average of the change in prices of many of the things American consumers buy. According to the bureau, this rate reflects the spending patterns of more than 90% of the U.S. population. 

The bureau also publishes a variety of more specific inflation rates, including for different geographic areas and for different types of expenditures, including food and beverages, housing and medical care. It also calculates a second version of its national inflation figure, called the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, which is based on the spending patterns of households where at least half of the income comes from wage or clerical work. 

Meanwhile, the Fed keeps an eye on a related but different inflation measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, as it’s setting interest rates.

How high is inflation today?

The latest consumer price index numbers, released on July 14, indicate prices rose 3.5% over the last 12 months. The numbers also show prices fell 0.4% in June, when adjusted for seasonal changes. The drop over the month came from falling gas prices, though the average cost of a gallon of gas in the U.S. remains about $1.10 higher than it was before the war in Iran began, according to a price tracker from NBC News.

Inflation today is far lower than in 2022, when it hit 8%, the highest in more than 30 years. But 3.5% is still well above the 2% target, said Menzie Chinn, professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

“Inflation is not as big of a concern in terms of its absolute value as it was maybe four years ago, but it’s higher than we would want, and going forward we certainly don’t want inflation to be running at this pace,” Chinn said. 

Meanwhile, wage growth has slowed, falling behind price growth. Nationally, wages and salaries rose 3.4% between March 2025 and March 2026, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  

“Concern about prices rising is not just prices rising, but it’s against the backdrop of how fast wages are rising. How many people are keeping up, and what components of the population are keeping up?” Chinn said.

The inflation rate may eventually come down, meaning the rate at which prices are rising slows. And some individual prices, including gas prices, could come down too. But prices overall seldom fall. 

“The price level is probably never coming down, unless we have a severe downturn of some sort,” Chinn said.

What are inflation calculators and how do I use one?

Inflation calculators let you enter a dollar value and see how the buying power of that dollar value has changed over time. One easy way to understand this is to think about what a dollar could have bought 50 years ago. Today, that dollar is essentially worth less because you’d need more than a dollar to buy the same goods. An inflation calculator can show you exactly how big the change is: You’d need $5.88 today to buy what a dollar would buy in 1976,  according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Inflation Calculator.

For a more practical example, enter your wage or salary at the time of your last raise, indicate the month and year of that raise, then select the latest month for which data is available. That tells you how much that wage or salary is worth in today’s dollars. 

You can also do the calculation backward to see the contrast in a different way. For example, if you earn $50,000 and you last received a raise two years ago, your pay today only goes as far as $47,038.95 at the time of your last raise. In other words, your “real salary” has fallen by 5.9%.

“If your wage is stuck and inflation is going up, your real earnings are going down,” said University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee economics professor John Heywood, who directs the school’s graduate program in human resources and labor relations. 

You can also use these tools to check whether a given price has been rising faster or slower than inflation.  Say your rent was $900 a month in June 2024, and it rose exactly in line with the index for all prices. It would now be $956.65. If it’s risen more than that, it’s outpaced inflation.

Here are links to a few useful inflation calculators:

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Inflation Calculator: bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
• Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ inflation calculator: minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator 

How can I use the information I get from an inflation calculator?

Inflation calculations can be a helpful tool for workers seeking a raise. Heywood suggests workers seeking raises gather information on both how their real earnings have declined over time and how their earnings compare with those of people in comparable positions in the industry and geographic area, and present that data to their human resources department.

“My impression is that at large corporations and at corporations that sort of follow best practices, they don’t want their workers to be paid less than their rivals or have their earnings go down, because they’re always in a competition for keeping and retaining talent,” Heywood said.

“If you can show, for example, that your wage hasn’t kept up with inflation or with your comparables, then a sensible HR department says, ‘Here’s somebody we might lose,’ and might very well be willing to increase somebody’s hourly or salary rate,” he said. 

If you’re represented by a labor union, your union representatives are likely doing these kinds of calculations regularly.

“It’s part of making sure that their members don’t have their earnings eroded by inflation,” Heywood said. 

To hold workers’ buying power steady, Heywood said, many union contracts include automatic cost of living adjustments. Six months into the contract period, for example, workers’ wages will rise by the same percentage that prices rose during those six months. 

Clauses like those were far more common before the soaring inflation of the 1970s and 1980s, Chinn said, noting that raising wages automatically in response to inflation can sometimes make inflation worse. As economists battled to get prices under control in the 1980s, they became more skeptical of these automatic wage increases.

“It’s good for the workers, it protects their buying power, but that means the cost of making stuff rises … which then feeds into next year’s demands,” Chinn said. Thus even a temporary shock to the economy can last much longer. 

But not raising pay comes at a cost too. “If they don’t get that automatic adjustment, it’s more likely they won’t get to maintain the real wage,” Chinn said.

Automatic cost of living adjustments are still common in some industries. “The auto industry uses it, (along with) aerospace, defense, postal workers, letter carriers, and a lot of local public unions,” Heywood said. “It hasn’t gone away.”

What’s the inflation forecast?

Many economists are predicting 2.5% to 3% inflation over the next year, Chinn said. He thinks those predictions are probably about right. 

“That’s assuming that we’re not having a big resumption of the war with Iran that completely blocks off indefinitely the Strait of Hormuz,” Chinn said. “That assumes no big collapse in the stock market and no big jumps in a trade war going forward.”

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.

With prices up, here’s how and why to use an inflation calculator is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.