Why the Middle Class Feels Broke While the Economy “Looks” Strong
Ken McElroy Show
Ken McElroy
4.8 • 692 Ratings
🗓️ 23 July 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ken and Danille dive into what Americans are really struggling with right now — skyrocketing costs, rising debt, and the harsh reality behind seemingly “good” economic numbers. From housing to credit cards, we explore how consumer Google searches reveal a growing gap between GDP stats and people’s daily lives.
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ABOUT KEN: Ken is the author of the bestselling books The ABC’s of Real Estate Investing, The Advanced Guide to Real Estate Investing, and The ABC’s of Property Management. With over two decades of experience in real estate investing, Ken McElroy is passionate about sharing the good life by helping real estate investors grow and prosper. This podcast is a place for Ken to discuss numerous topics connected to real estate investing, including finance, budgeting, the entrepreneur mindset, and creating passive income. Ken offers a wealth of personal experiences, practical advice, success stories, and even some informative setbacks, all presented here to educate and inspire. Whether you’re a new or seasoned investor, the information and resources on this channel will set you on a path where you and your investments can thrive.
Ken's company: https://mccompanies.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So today we're not talking about housing. We're talking about real life, what people are actually |
| 0:09.3 | Googling, what they're thinking about, what they're stressed about, and that all shows up in |
| 0:15.1 | their internet searches. Right, right. We were talking about this, you know, like these are the people |
| 0:20.2 | that pay. Like, these are, these are your tenants. These are the, you know, the common people that, you know, they buy stuff in the retail. They, you know, they go to offices. They, they rent a lot of times and sometimes they buy. But I think it's important that we really dig into what's really going on with the consumer. |
| 0:38.6 | Yeah, terms like recession, debt, credit card help, cost a living, and auto loan rescue are all really Googled terms right now. |
| 0:48.5 | So what you have to look is people aren't Googling right now how to grow their portfolio. |
| 0:53.4 | They're Googling just how to make it month to month, essentially. |
| 0:58.1 | Right. |
| 0:58.3 | As you guys know, so obviously, everybody's worried about tariffs. |
| 1:02.6 | Everybody's worried about inflation. |
| 1:04.9 | But what we're starting to see is we're starting to see a pullback. |
| 1:09.0 | We've been talking about flex payments. |
| 1:11.7 | We've been talking about people are financing things like groceries. The car sales are down. There's a lot of things |
| 1:17.3 | that are down. And what does all this mean? All it means is if you have something that you've invested |
| 1:23.8 | in, any kind of real estate, Airbnb, obviously, which is kind of a, you know, |
| 1:29.4 | it's a specialty deal, right? Like people, people go to Airbnb's on vacations and stuff like that. |
| 1:35.6 | So those are, these are things that you should be watching because these people are starting to |
| 1:40.1 | pull back. And we're starting to see that with Netflix descriptions. We're seeing that with |
| 1:46.7 | Jim memberships. You know, this is what the consumer serves to do first. It's really important |
| 1:52.0 | that you watch these, you know, I guess it would be red flags if you're an investor. |
| 1:56.7 | Absolutely. So let's first discuss housing affordability versus the real economy. And I think it's interesting because Tucker Carlson was just at an event last week, and I'm sure a lot of you have heard this, but he was really talking to what people's needs were. And he was saying, you know, I don't give a crop about the GDP. I care that my |
| 2:18.6 | kid cannot have a full-time job and buy a house by 27, not even by 35. So, you know, these are what |
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