Public debate often treats economic disruptions as short-lived problems—sharp swings in prices, employment, or growth that settle once the broader economy finds its footing again. Early November’s election results suggest voters may see things somewhat differently. Candidates who focused squarely on affordability did well because households may be responding, at least in part, to something far more persistent: years of declining economic well-being that do not roll back once the headlines move on. 

For decades, policy conversations have too often accepted a simple assumption: that it is only rational to tolerate short-run turmoil in exchange for long-run stability. In this model, policymakers adjust course—sometimes modestly, sometimes not at all—while workers, small-business owners, jobseekers, and caregivers are expected to weather the turbulence. In theory, these shocks are supposed to fade, and the greater good is served by merely bandaging the complaints of lower-income groups until the headline metrics herald an apparent return to normalcy. In practice, however, households experience these shocks—and their aftermath—very differently. And while some economic turbulence is truly inevitable, appreciating the disconnect between the picture painted by the aggregate indicators and the ripple effects households feel is a necessary step towards identifying policies that can improve affordability. 

Everyday Americans certainly feel the effects of economic shocks that are captured in the headline statistics, but there are many reasons why an improvement in those headline numbers doesn’t map to an improvement in a household’s financial situation. For example, most people don’t budget for the 80,000 goods and services tracked by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). They manage a much smaller set of expenses, e.g. rent, groceries, childcare, utilities, insurance premiums, and a few others. If the weekly grocery bill jumps by $40, that often becomes the new number they have to live with.

Even when market forces eventually push prices down, the clock is rarely fully wound back and wages often fail to keep pace with the new cost realities. A rent increase does not automatically reverse when inflation cools. Childcare prices do not necessarily fall just because CPI moderates. Shocks to essentials are rarely one-time disturbances that disappear when the crisis fades, even if the price increases only once—more often, they become lasting additions to the cost of living, raising the baseline from which working Americans make every subsequent financial decision.  

Recent price surges underscore how rare true reversals are. The CPI for food shows prices decelerating but not reversing from their 2022 spike, a frustration grocery shoppers have experienced firsthand. Milk prices, for example, fell briefly from $4.20 per gallon in January 2023 to $3.86 by May 2024, only to stabilize around $4.00 by August. By November 2025, consumers were paying 25% more for the same purchases than they had in 2019. Egg prices tell a similar story: despite easing from their most serious spikes in January 2023 and March 2025, they remained roughly double their pre-inflation level as of September 2025.