Opinion > Opinions - Finance The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill America’s cost-of-living crisis is entering its most brutal phase by John Mac Ghlionn, opinion contributor - 03/01/26 12:00 PM ET by John Mac Ghlionn, opinion contributor - 03/01/26 12:00 PM ET Share ✕ LinkedIn LinkedIn Email Email FILE – Several VISA and MASTER credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File) Americans feel crushed . Basic survival has replaced aspiration. That shift crept in quietly, bill by bill, renewal by renewal, until the future felt less like a horizon and more like a choke point. Half of Americans now struggle to pay basic bills on time. Tax refunds, once earmarked for trips or treats, now determine whether the lights stay on. Nearly four in ten people have been displaced from their homes by rising costs. For Gen Z, it is worse. Roughly half have moved not for adventure or opportunity, but because staying put became impossible. The damage is financial, but it’s also psychological. Two-thirds of young Americans no longer believe they will ever afford to live where they want. Not dream homes. Not luxury cities. Simply a place that feels stable, safe, and theirs. They have adjusted their expectations downward. Not out of humility, but exhaustion. When aiming higher feels futile, people stop lifting their eyes. They settle. That surrender poisons a society long before it bankrupts it. What many still describe as a temporary squeeze is better understood as a permanent recalibration. When nine in ten people agree there is a crisis, when keeping your head above water is considered a win, when the vast majority of unexpected money is swallowed by necessities rather than joy, something fundamental has shifted. Those who think this economy is catching its breath are mistaken. It is teaching an entire generation that the old promise no longer applies. Skeptics, particularly devoted supporters of President Trump, may dismiss this anxiety as mood rather than math. The numbers refuse to play along. Consumer spending continues, yes, but the foundation is cracking. Credit card debt has surged to record highs, topping $1.2 trillion . A third of adults have raided their savings in just the past few months. More than a quarter now lean harder on credit cards simply to cover routine purchases. Buy-now-pay-later plans, once marketed for gadgets and fashion, are increasingly used for groceries. Prices tell the same story. Housing costs jumped sharply in just two years. Coffee rose nearly 20 percent year over year . Beef climbed 15 percent . Medical care rose again. These aren’t abstract charts or distant averages, but brutal prices staring back at Americans at checkout counters, pharmacy windows and rental offices. For those who think people are buying more, they aren’t. They’re paying more for what they’ve always needed. Americans are spending because they must. Survival now runs on credit. Analysts note that consumers are “muscling through,” relying on willpower rather than margin. When 70 percent say their area is no longer affordable and nearly half report their finances worsening year over year, that isn’t mass misperception but a clear-eyed assessment of daily reality. The hardest truth to acknowledge is that this pressure is about to compound. Just as families scramble to cover today’s bills, the job market that once offered escape is beginning to buckle. In recent weeks, advances in AI erased hundreds of billions of dollars in software valuations, not on hype, but performance. Tools that once assisted now replace. Systems that once supported now substitute. Entire workflows are being absorbed by algorithms that don’t sleep, negotiate, or need raises. Even the people who built these systems admit to feeling uneasy about watching their own work automated. Engineers speak openly of communities dissolving as human collaboration gives way to silent computation. The immediate damage has already arrived. But the deeper danger lies ahead. Investors are no longer pricing AI as a tool that helps workers. They are pricing it as a replacement for them. For graduates with fancy degrees entering a market where starter jobs are vanishing, the timing couldn’t be worse. The roles that once absorbed educated workers are the first to be erased. For those already employed, the picture isn’t much better. As companies discover that algorithms cost less than salaries, layoffs accelerate. Those record credit card balances are rising, just as the income needed to pay them becomes less secure. The cost-of-living crisis is no longer just about prices. It‘s also about position — about an economy that demands more while offering less; about a generation learning, slowly and painfully, that effort alone no longer guarantees progress. Markets have already done the calculat