Do you feel stressed out whenever another bill arrives in the mail or another unexpected expense suddenly hits you? If so, you are certainly not alone. All over America, much of the population is living in a constant state of financial stress in 2026. According to a CNBC and SurveyMonkey survey, approximately 63 percent of U.S. adults report living paycheck to paycheck. That figure includes a whopping 81 percent of Americans that make less than $50,000 a year that say that they are living paycheck to paycheck. When you have to constantly watch where every single dollar goes, it can suck the life right out of you. As I discussed in one recent article, 44 percent of Americans now struggle to even afford the most basic necessities. That is nearly half the country. We have been mired in a seemingly endless cost of living crisis for this entire decade, and there is no end in sight. In fact, it appears that it is getting even worse.
On Tuesday, we learned that consumer prices rose even faster than expected last month…
Price increases remained stubbornly high in October as expensive energy prices kept rippling through the US economy, with zero relief in sight for weary American consumers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that consumer prices rose by 0.4 percent in October month over month, after a 0.6 percent gain in September.
The BLS did not release a year-over-year comparison for October 2026 because the agency was unable to gather data one year ago during the 2025 government shutdown – but prices are up about 4 percent over the last 12 months.
Of course the truth is that the cost of living is most definitely not “up about 4 percent over the last 12 months”.
It is going up way faster than that.
Since 1978, the way that the federal government calculates the rate of inflation has changed over and over again.
When federal bureaucrats make these changes, the goal is almost always to make the rate of inflation appear to be lower.
On the official BLS website, they actually have a list of all of the revisions that they have made to the way that the Consumer Price Index is calculated. These are just the changes that we have witnessed since 1978…
1978: The fourth comprehensive revision
- Added a new Consumer Price Index: the CPI for All Urban Consumers, or the CPI-U
- Changed the name of the older CPI to the CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or the CPI-W
- Based weights on a 1972–73 survey of consumer expenditures and the 1970 census
- Expanded the sample to 85 areas (primary sampling units)
- Increased minimum frequency for obtaining the prices of goods and services (known as “pricing”) from quarterly to bi-monthly
- Implemented monthly pricing in the five largest areas
- Introduced probability sampling methods at all stages of CPI sampling
- Introduced checklists that define each category of spending to clarify what is included or excluded from an item (See appendix 2.)
- Developed estimates of the CPI’s sampling error and optimal sample allocation to minimize that error
- Began systematic replacement of retail outlets and their item samples between major revisions
- Implemented a point-of-purchase survey (POPS)
- Selected retail outlets with probability proportional to consumer spending therein
- Eliminated reliance on outdated secondary-source sampling frames
- Began rotating outlet samples every 5 years
- Began rotating one-fifth of the CPI pricing areas each year
1987: The fifth comprehensive revision
- Based weights on the 1982–84 Consumer Expenditure Survey and the 1980 Census
- Updated samples of items, outlets, and areas
- Began rotating item samples every 5 years
- Redesigned the CPI housing survey
- Improved sampling, data collection, data processing, and statistical estimation methods
- Initiated more efficient sample design and sample allocation
- Introduced techniques to make CPI production and calculation more efficient
- Introduced rental equivalence concept in January 1983 for the CPI-U and in January 1985 for the CPI-W (Additional information on rental equivalence is available in a factsheet.)
1988: Improved housing estimator to account for aging of the sample housing units
1992: Improved the handling of new models of vehicles and other goods
1994: Improved seasonal adjustment methods
1995: Implemented new sample procedures to prevent overweighting items whose prices are likely to rise
1997: Changes made to hospital services
- Initiated a single hospital services item stratum with a treatment-oriented item definition
- Discontinued pricing of the inputs to hospital services
1998: The sixth comprehensive revision
- Based weights on the 1993–95 Consumer Expenditure Survey and the 1990 census
- Updated geographic and housing samples
- Extensively revised item classification system
- Implemented new housing index estimation system
- Used computer-assisted data collection
- Added the Telephone Point-of-Purchase Survey (TPOPS) which allows rotation of outlet and item samples by item category and geographic area, rather than by area alone (this survey was previously conducted in person)
1999: Developed the Consumer Price Index research series
- Developed the Consumer Price Index Research Series, which is an estimate of the CPI for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) from 1978 to present that incorporates most of the improvements made over that time span into the entire series
1999: Initiated a new housing survey based on the 1990 census
- Initiated a new housing survey based on the 1990 census that estimated price change for owners’ equivalent rent directly from rents (an estimate of the implicit rent owner occupants would have to pay if they were renting their homes)
1999: Began using a geometric mean formula for most basic indexes
- Began using a geometric mean formula for most basic indexes that mitigates lower level substitution bias and reflects shifts in consumer spending with item categories as relative price change
1999–2000: Expanded the use of hedonic regression in quality adjustment
2002: Addition of the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (C-CPI-U) and other changes
- Implemented biennial weight updates
- Implemented 4-year outlet rotation to replace 5-year scheme
- Added the C-CPI-U in August
- Uses more advanced “superlative” index formula (the Törnqvist formula)
- Corrects upper-level substitution bias
2003: Directed replacement of sample items in the personal computer and other categories, to keep samples current
2004: Expanded collection of price data to all business days of the month
- Expanded collection of price data to all business days of the month (Before 2004, prices were collected during the first 18 business days of the month for the first 10 months of the year and the first 15 business days for November and December.)
2007: Began publishing indexes to three decimal places (January)
2008: Added CPI-E and published it back to 1982
- Congress mandated experimental consumer price index for older people (62 years of age and older)
- CPI-E has limitations related to the expenditure weights, outlets sampled, items priced, and the prices collected
2010: Began a three-stage effort to improve the housing survey
- First and second stages used the 2000 census
- First stage was a 4-year sample augmentation with a goal of adding 16,000 units, mainly in neighborhoods with seriously depleted renter samples; this data was first used in the rent indexes for July 2010
- Second stage was a sample replacement meant to replace the rental units introduced in 1999. The November 2012 CPI was the first that used a new sample from this stage and the May 2016 CPI was the first in which the housing survey sample was drawn entirely from the 2000 census.
- The third stage was a regular replacement commencing in 2016 that will end in 2022. It will replace the 2000 census-based sample with one based on the American Community Survey using 2010 Decennial census geography. This stage will continue into the future and, for the first time, the CPI housing survey will have a process that keeps its sample continuously updated.
2018: Geographic revision
- Introduced a new geographic sample based on the 2010 Census
- Changed the publication frequency for several local area indexes
- Established new local area and aggregate indexes
- Introduced census division-level index data
2019: Changes to the CPI establishment frame
- Replaced Telephone Point-of-Purchase Survey (TPOPS) as source of retail establishment frame with data from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE)
- Eliminates redundancies and inefficiencies in survey operations and reduces household burden
- Use of Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages business registry to refine the location and address data from the CE
2020–2022: Expanded use of third-party data
- Expanded the use of third-party data sources in the estimation of the CPI, including high-profile projects for gasoline and new vehiclesdata
2023: Implemented annual weight updates
I know that list is very long.
But I have included it for a reason.
It is so important to understand that the way that the rate of inflation is calculated today does not even come close to resembling how the rate of inflation was calculated during the Jimmy Carter era.
If we did calculate the rate of inflation the exact same way that we did back then, it would be well into double digit territory.
Even the mainstream media is admitting that we are experiencing “high inflation”, and this is putting a tremendous amount of financial stress on most of the U.S. population…
High inflation has created severe financial pressures in recent years for most U.S. households, which are forced to pay more for everyday necessities like food and rent. Price hikes are particularly difficult for lower-income Americans because they tend to spend more of their already-stretched paychecks on necessities and have less flexibility to save.
When 1978 began, the average price of a pound of ground beef in the United States was hovering around one dollar.
Today, the average price of a pound of ground beef in the United States is $6.79.
Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. The following comes from a Wall Street Journal article entitled “Why High Beef Prices Are Here to Stay”…
Tyson Foods maintenance worker Austin Campbell was checking his email in August for updates on a promotion when instead he saw a message from the company’s chief executive.
“Our beef business is operating in a challenging environment due to the historic cattle shortage,” Donnie King, Tyson’s CEO at the time, wrote in an internal email announcing the closure of the Utah facility where Campbell worked. “These supply constraints are likely to persist.”
Of course just about everything at the grocery store has become significantly more expensive.
If you go grocery shopping on a regular basis like I do, then you know exactly what I am talking about.
27 percent of Americans are now regularly skipping meals, and Americans are dining out less frequently than they once did…
Over the last two years, consumers have dined out less frequently and grown pickier about where they choose to eat, based on data from Black Box Intelligence.
You may have noticed that restaurants are closing down all over the nation.
This month, we learned that Outback Steakhouse’s largest U.S. franchisee has been forced to file for bankruptcy…
The casual dining industry has suffered another major blow following the bankruptcy filing of Outback Steakhouse’s largest U.S. franchisee after years of soaring costs, declining customer traffic, and mounting debt.
San Diego-based Out West Restaurant Group, also known as Cerca Trova Restaurant Group, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday in Delaware, putting 61 restaurants across five Western states into bankruptcy proceedings.
The company’s debt has exploded from $269 million in 2020 to approximately $449 million in 2026, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Fast food chains are being hit really hard as well…
Global Midsouth Holding Corp., a franchisee of Checkers and Rally’s, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on October 28, just one day before a scheduled foreclosure auction involving one of its Tennessee restaurant properties, according to TheStreet.
The Memphis-based company reported $1.9 million in assets against $1.3 million in liabilities. Revenue fell from $860,000 in 2024 to $800,000 in 2025, underscoring the financial difficulties facing the business.
However, Global Midsouth isn’t the only burger franchisee that went bust.
Meritage Hospitality Group, one of Wendy’s largest franchisees, filed for bankruptcy in September after struggling with declining sales, rising beef prices, and mounting financial obligations.
If you have a favorite restaurant, I would visit it while you still can, because a lot more restaurants are going to be permanently closing their doors in the months ahead.
U.S. consumers are tapped out, and they are increasingly falling behind on their debts.
For example, just consider the huge spike in subprime auto delinquencies that we are currently witnessing…
Americans are falling behind on their car payments at levels not seen in nearly a decade, and the situation is becoming increasingly alarming. According to new research from LoanTape, 17.68% of subprime auto loan balances in the securitized pools it examined were at least 30 days delinquent in September 2026, the highest September reading in its dataset dating back to 2017. Another 7% were at least 60 days overdue, compared with 3.43% in September 2019. That means serious delinquencies in this segment have more than doubled from their pre-pandemic level.
When the cost of living goes up, our standard of living goes down.
So the fact that the percentage of businesses that plan to raise prices is the highest it has been since July 2022 should deeply alarm all of us…
A net 37% of businesses responding to the October National Federation of Independent Business survey reported that they plan to raise prices in the next three months, the highest level since July 2022.
In a desperate attempt to fight inflation, the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates.
At this point, it is being projected that there is “an 87.3% probability of a 25 basis point hike” next month.
The Federal Reserve is set to hold its next monetary policy meeting on Dec. 8-9 and policymakers are overwhelmingly expected to hike interest rates in the wake of the October CPI inflation report.
The market sees an 87.3% probability of a 25 basis point hike to a new target range of 4% to 4.25%, up from 84% a day ago and 77% a week ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
Do you want to know what I think about that?
I think that another rate hike would be incredibly foolish.
You don’t hike rates when the economy is slowing down.
Economic conditions are deteriorating from coast to coast, and large companies are conducting mass layoffs.
PepsiCo is one of the latest examples…
PepsiCo is cutting about 1,000 jobs across North America as the company tries to turn around lagging sales in its home market.
“We have a clear ambition for PepsiCo North America: to build a stronger, more future-fit business that delivers industry-leading growth,” Ram Krishnan, CEO of PepsiCo North America, wrote in a Monday letter to employees obtained by CNBC. “To do that, we need to be faster, more connected, and more capable, while continuing to invest in growth — behind our people, capabilities and brands.”
The Fed made the same mistake just prior to the Great Recession.
They never seem to learn.
Inflation is on the rise because our leaders have been borrowing and spending way too much money and because the wars on the other side of the globe have been driving up energy prices.
But those problems are not going to get fixed any time soon, are they?
The middle class in the United States is being systematically eviscerated right in front of our eyes.
Every single day more Americans fall into poverty.
Every single day more Americans join the ranks of the homeless.
Every single day more Americans turn to food banks for help.
Every single day millions of Americans are skipping meals because they don’t have enough money.
We are in far more trouble than most people realize, and 2027 is going to be such a difficult year.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.
