Data Confirms What Consumers Already Know: Rising Prices Continue To Squeeze Working Families

Data Confirms What Consumers Already Know: Rising Prices Continue To Squeeze Working Families

As workers face a slow job market and sweeping layoffs, prices are up 2.9% across the board: That's 3.2% for food, 20.9% for coffee, 6.2% for electricity, 6% for used vehicles, and 4.2% for health care

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest Consumer Price Index showing that inflation rose 2.9% compared to this time last year. Core inflation, which gauges underlying inflation by stripping out volatile items like energy and food prices, rose 3.1% in the last year.

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, issued the following statement:

"Today's data confirms what Americans families already know - overall they are paying 3 percent more for essential goods and services than they were last year. Here's what that breaks down to for the increasingly squeezed family: In the last 12 months, Food is up 3.2 percent; electricity is up 6.2 percent; used cars and trucks are up 6 percent; shelter is up 3. 6 percent; and medical care services are up 4. 2 percent. Yesterday, we were told to brace ourselves for higher health insurance premiums over the next year. The trade and budget policies of this Administration are driving this economy in the wrong direction. We need to change course," Sen. Cantwell said.

President Donald Trump made bringing down prices a cornerstone of his campaign: "On Day 1, we will end inflation," he said at a rally in August 2024. Despite Trump's promises, prices have only gone up under his watch.

One major driver of rising prices under Trump is his slapdash and chaotic approach to imposing tariffs on the United States' trading partners. Earlier this year, Sen. Cantwell introduced the bipartisan Trade Review Act of 2025, which is modeled after the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and would reestablish limits on the president's ability to impose unilateral tariffs without the approval of Congress. Her bill has since picked up 12 additional cosponsors - an equal mix of Republicans and Democrats - and been endorsed by multiple major U.S. business organizations, including the National Retail Federation, which is the largest retail trade association in the world.

Prices are also rising thanks to Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," which he signed into law in July. The bill included multiple provisions expected to drive up health care costs, including deep cuts to Medicaid, new hurdles to accessing coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and failure to extend the Enhanced Premium Tax Credits, which help subsidize health insurance for more than 214,000 Washingtonians and will expire at the end of 2025. Earlier this week, the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner announced the 2026 rate increases for Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace enrollees in Washington state -- next year, Washington's small business owners and people who purchase health insurance on the open market will pay an average of 21% more per month for coverage - nearly double the rate increase from 2024 to 2025. Sen. Cantwell convened stakeholders and small business owners in Spokane and Vancouver earlier this month to raise the alarm about skyrocketing health insurance costs.

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