I am blessed personally, but I see my eldest daughter really struggling to keep up with the cost of things rising much faster than her wages. She works really hard (50+ hours a week) and then has the challenges of being a single mom.

Her "hobbies" have changed to growing some of her own food and making things she used to buy to help control costs and cooking more and eating out less.

We help out and provide some free vacations for her and her daughter at our time shares, I also buy my granddaughter clothes at the beginning of each school semester along with the regular stuff that grandparents do for their grandchildren.

Under Trump our daughter was saving money and with the low interest rates managed to buy a condo just before interest rates soared under Biden.

I wouldn't say she is as bad off as you are, but I think her buying power is down 20% after paying for health insurance which has also gone up quite a bit with energy and food leading the pack. And she no longer finds she is able to save.

To be clear, I wasn't saying you should vote for Trump, I was just comparing the economy under Trump with Biden's economy. Both economies are doing okay at the macro level, but Trump's economy was much better for wage workers, since wages were rising faster than costs.

I don't believe in socialism, but I am prepared to pay more for things if it translates to better wages for workers. I also believe America needs to be not only energy independent, but produce enough of what we need, that we are not vulnerable to foreign countries putting the squeeze on us. Finally, we live in southern California, and we see the direct negative impact all of the illegal immigration is having on low wage workers incomes and housing costs. Some businesses benefit from cheap labor, but it comes at a cost to American workers.