It’s not just you. This year’s Thanksgiving meal costs about 10% more than last year’s. When families sit down to eat, they’re bringing with them not just desserts and sides but the weight of an economy that no longer works for them. 

Americans feel this acutely. A recent CNN poll found that 85% of voters say grocery prices are higher than a year ago, with 60% saying they have risen “a lot.” A Fox News poll reached the same conclusion: 75% of voters across parties describe the economy negatively, citing higher costs for groceries, utilities, health care, and housing. When voters from opposite ends of the political spectrum report the same lived experience, this is no longer a partisan narrative problem. It’s a reality. 

Inflation: Still Too High, and Still Too Visible 

The latest available inflation data, released in September 2025, shows price pressures running faster than they were at the same point last year, due to the government shutdown. While the November report may nudge the numbers slightly, it won’t change the underlying truth: inflation is stubborn, uneven, and still visible in everyday purchases.  

That’s why, when the Century Foundation finds that some Thanksgiving staples will cost families more than 20% above last year’s prices — onions (56%), spiral hams (49%), and cranberry sauce (22%) — this isn’t just a holiday frustration. It’s a case study in how inflation works in people’s lives: quietly in some places, sharply in others, always eroding families’ purchasing power. 

Employment: Slowing at Exactly the Wrong Time 

At the same time, the job market is softening in ways policymakers cannot ignore. The unemployment rate climbed over the fall, and October’s Nonfarm Payrolls report showed only about 125,000 jobs added — roughly half the average pace of job creation during the previous year. Some sectors are already reducing hiring or freezing it altogether. 

This combination — lower job creation alongside higher prices — creates dangerous twin pressure for households. It’s not just that things cost more; it’s that there’s less certainty and employment. For many families, the distance between stability and strain is uncomfortably narrow when inflation and job uncertainty rise together. 

The Disparate Burden on Black Families 

The difficult job market and persistent inflation are not impacting all Americans equally. For many Black families, the distance between stability and catastrophe is already dangerously narrow. 

The economic strain felt across the country is magnified by long-standing racial disparities. As of September 2025, Black adult unemployment was double that of white unemployment at 7.5% — the highest since 2021. A key driver of this spike is the rapid displacement of Black women, connected to executive branch policy, including federal workforce cuts, the rollback of diversity and inclusion initiatives, and job losses in professional and business services.  

Even inflation cuts deeper into Black Communities. A Richmond Federal Reserve study found that Black households experienced significantly larger, unpredictable, and frequent price swings in consumer goods compared to White households due to their spending habits. This is primarily because Black households are more likely to spend their budgets on necessary goods whose prices are typically more volatile. 

Fiscal Policy Is Now Counterproductive 

While the Federal Reserve works to bring inflation down, recent fiscal actions from the Executive Branch and Congress are pushing in the opposite direction. The unpredictable use of tariffs on key imported goods acts as a tax on both consumers and businesses. These taxes raise costs for U.S. manufacturers and increase the sticker price of household items — compounding the very inflation the Fed is trying to control. 

Equally problematic is the growing climate of fiscal instability. Businesses large and small require predictability to make long-term hiring and investment decisions. But what they’vereceived instead is uncertainty: shuttered federal agencies, mass firings of public employees, and the longest U.S. government shutdown in history. These events send a clear message to investors, executives, and workers: policymaking has become volatile, and long-term planning carries more risk than it should. 

The economy is now paying the price for this volatility, and it is literally landing on American’s plates.   

The Fed’s Dilemma 

This is the backdrop for last week’s comments by the New York Federal Reserve President, who signaled the possibility of additional interest-rate cuts. His message was not a victory lap on inflation. It was a warning: in the balance between price stability and employment, weakening job growth is becoming the more urgent threat. 

The Federal Reserve now faces the choice it has long hoped to avoid:  

  • Cut rates to support hiring and risk retriggering price pressures, or 
  • Keep rates high to finish the inflation fight and risk accelerating job losses. 

There is no painless option. Both carry consequences that Americans already feel—in their grocery bills, in their paychecks, and in their sense of economic stability. 

A Narrower Path Forward 

We are not in stagflation. But we are facing its most troubling ingredients: sticky prices, slowing employment, and rising anxiety. The path ahead is narrow not just because of the Fed’s dilemma, but because the central bank is now operating against two headwinds: global volatility and the destabilizing effects of Washington’s fiscal actions. 

If policymakers want the economy to regain balance, the next moves must come from outside the Federal Reserve. Predictable fiscal policy, stable agencies, and a coherent trade posture would do more to ease inflation pain than any single interest-rate adjustment. Specifically, both Congress and the executive branch need to provide the stability and predictability that business, markets, and families need.  

As families gather this week, their conversations won’t revolve around CPI reports or labor-market trend lines. They will be about the cost of groceries, the security of jobs, and the uneasy feeling that the economy is shifting under their feet—an anxiety made worse by inflation that remains too high and by leadership that remains too unpredictable. 

Unlike the holiday meal, those worries won’t disappear on Friday. What Washington chooses to do next will determine whether they deepen. 

Eric Morrissette is a Senior Fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and served as Acting National Director of the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA).