Now, at age 30, Pinkham owns a home in the Seattle area and plans to build another luxury property. When he and his wife were thinking about having children, he said childcare costs were not a major concern, and if he ever lost his job, he would have enough money to last him for years.
But he still has a negative view of the economy, based on what he hears from friends and family.
“There are a lot of people whose incomes don’t go up when the stock market goes up,” said Pinkham, who votes for Democrats. “For me personally, I’m doing well. But then you look at the big numbers, and I don’t think it’s in a good place.”
The Trump administration’s deregulation, along with corporate tax breaks in last year’s tax law, sent stocks to record highs last year. Those heavily invested in tech companies benefited the most — just seven tech companies, including Amazon and Meta, accounted for 40% of the S&P 500’s gains last year.
While most Americans have invested some money in the stock market, a disproportionate share of the gains have gone to the wealthy, with the richest 10% of households owning nearly 90% of all stocks, according to Federal Reserve data.
Those same households were responsible for nearly half of all consumer spending by 2025, the highest level since at least 1989, according to Moody’s Analytics. Wealthy families also boosted the housing market and new car sales last year. Walmart said last month that most of its growth came from households making more than $100,000.
Jeremy Kregar, 23, considers himself lucky among his group of college friends. He makes $21 an hour working for an optometrist in Portland, Oregon, where he has an affordable rent of $1,000 a month.
But her salary doesn’t cover her debts, including her $20,000 student loan payments. Some days she said she skipped meals because she can’t afford groceries and earns too much to qualify for food stamps. The idea of owning a home, saving for retirement or building an emergency fund seems hopeless, he said.
“Based on the reality that I live in, and that of my friends, it doesn’t seem like anyone is doing better. It seems like everyone is actually doing worse,” Kregar said. “It looks like we are being robbed by the government.”
Among the ways Trump has affected the fate of the American people is his spending, which has raised prices, said Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, who served in the George W. Bush administration. Higher prices are equally disruptive to those with less disposable income to absorb price increases.
The price hikes “hurt the bottom end more than the top end,” Holtz-Eakin said. “And they are the ones who face the most problems in the labor market.”
The slow pace of the labor market is putting a lot of pressure on households. Wages are not rising as fast as in recent years, and employers have pulled back on hiring. The US added only 584,000 jobs in 2025, the worst year for employment since Covid. And most of the growth was driven by a few industries, such as health care and education.
Economists have blamed this on factors including higher costs and tax uncertainty, corporate overemployment in the wake of the pandemic, and the increased use of robots and AI.
“We’ve seen no job growth. If you look outside of health and education, we’ve lost jobs by 2025,” Holtz-Eakin said. “It’s not a strong job market. People aren’t getting hired.”
Measuring Trump’s move
The economy was once Trump’s strongest selling point: He focused his 2016 campaign on wooing working-class voters. When he was in office, wage growth accelerated for low-wage workers and unemployment fell to the lowest level in decades, before the disruption caused by the pandemic.
But in his second term, Trump’s approval rating on the economy has been declining.
A White House official said the administration intends to follow the same playbook as Trump’s first term: using tax cuts and legislative changes to spur investment, as well as reducing immigration, which the administration believes will strengthen the labor market and raise wages.
“There is much work to be done, but this is just the beginning,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in an email, adding, “The American people can rest assured that the best is yet to come.”
Trump has proposed some programs designed to help low-income households, such as a lower credit card interest rate and a 50-year mortgage that would lower monthly payments. Most of the proposals have not been implemented.
Some moves, such as price reductions on a limited number of prescription drugs, will benefit some people — but may offset high health insurance costs after Congress failed to extend funding for the Affordable Care Act.
Some plans will take years to take effect, such as savings accounts for young children bearing Trump’s name. The federal government will deposit $1,000 into the accounts, which will be invested in the stock market and converted to retirement accounts when the children turn 18. Assuming the stock market continues to grow at about 10% per year, that $1,000 would be about $5,500 in 18 years. The amount could increase significantly if families were able to make a maximum contribution of $5,000 per year, benefiting wealthier households.
Trump’s direct impact on Americans’ finances may come as they pay their taxes; Many households will see a big refund thanks to Trump’s “big, good debt” signed into law last summer. Middle-income families may benefit from tax breaks on overtime pay, and some older adults will receive a tax break on their Social Security income.
But the biggest benefit from the new tax cuts will go to wealthy households, including those who own businesses or expensive homes in states with high property taxes and those who receive multimillion-dollar estates. The law also extends tax cuts made during Trump’s first term that were due to expire.
“There are things in the bill like tax exemptions on tips, but they are very small” compared to interventions that help the wealthy, such as the estate tax, said Owen Zidar, an economics professor at Princeton University.
He cited an analysis by the Tax Policy Center that found that households making $460,000 to $1.1 million would receive an average tax cut of $21,000 in 2026. Meanwhile, low-income families making $67,000 to $119,000 will get a modest tax cut of about $1,800.
Those breaks come on top of decades of tax cuts, like those for business owners established during Trump’s first term, that benefited the wealthiest households and enabled them to continue accumulating more wealth, Zidar said.
Meanwhile, those like Liz Doyle in Oklahoma continued to struggle for the basics.
Doyle, 67, who voted for Trump, said rising prices for everything from coffee to insulin are disrupting his monthly budget, almost all of which comes from Social Security.
“Grocery prices are absolutely ridiculous,” Doyle said. “Coffee prices, what on earth?”
His property taxes have quadrupled in the past two years, he said. He doesn’t have a 401(k) and only owns a small amount, so he hasn’t benefited much from the market’s supply. From time to time, he sells vegetables, such as okra, from his garden at the local farmers market for extra income.
“President Trump has done much better than Biden,” said Doyle, who cited lower inflation under Trump. “But the question is: Is Trump that good, or was Biden that bad?”
Kregar, who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, said her experience in economics since graduating college that year has changed her views on Democrats.
“Every time I go to the store, I get nervous,” Kregar said. “For now, we’re going to build a ballroom for the White House? It feels like, as an American, a slap in the face.”
