Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum,

2025 was a year of economic uncertainty for many Americans.

Shifting tariff policies, stubbornly high inflation,

and skyrocketing health care costs have left many consumers reeling.

Will 2026 see a better economy?

Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Wednesday, January 8th,

2026. The buzzword of the year is affordability. Will the new year make things a little easier for Americans, or does more pain lie ahead?

For more on this, I'm now joined by USA Today finance reporter Andrea Riccier.

Thank you so much for coming on the show, Andrea.

Hey, Dana.

Happy New Year.

New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, won on a platform of affordability, something President Donald

Trump originally called a hoax. But the message has been resonating with Americans.

Inflation spiked during the Biden administration because, one, all the money that was injected

into the economy to keep us out of a deep recession during the pandemic.

And two, worldwide supply chain snarls also stemming from the pandemic.

Is high inflation still a factor in the economy?

Sure. It's a great question. So inflation, if you define it as the rate of change of

different consumer goods. So, for example, if I go into

the grocery store today and I buy eggs, milk, and bread, is that a higher cost for me than it would

have been a year ago or a month ago? Inflation has come down. It's not as high as it was a couple

years ago. But we had a couple of years of inflation, which means that prices, the price that you're starting from, is higher than it would have been, say, five years ago.

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