Americans’ mood about money has hit a record low. In late May, the University of Michigan reported that its consumer sentiment index fell to 44.8 — the lowest reading in the survey’s history. The survey’s director, Joanne Hsu, said the cost of living was the top concern, with 57% of people naming high prices as the reason their finances feel worse. It was the third straight month of decline.

That is not a Wall Street number. That is a kitchen-table number, and it is flashing red.

This is not a slow drift. The struggle is surging.

A survey released in February by The Century Foundation found that more than one in three Americans (34%) had skipped a meal in the past year to save money, up from one in four just months earlier. That is how fast this is moving. Families are not only skipping meals; they are skipping doctor visits and going without medication.

People are not trimming the fat anymore. They are cutting into the bone.

It shows up at the most basic place a family spends money. A CNN poll in late May found that 61% of Americans had cut back on groceries to stay within budget, and 59% had cut back on extras and entertainment. When a majority of the country is buying less food, that is not a soft patch.

That is a warning siren.

So people take on more work just to stand still. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the number of Americans holding more than one job hit roughly 9.3 million in November 2025 — the most ever recorded since the government began tracking it in 1994. Half of those workers hold a college degree.

A second job used to be how you got ahead. For millions of families, it is now how you keep the lights on.

The math behind it is brutal. Over the past five years, housing costs climbed about 28% while wages rose around 24%. Grocery prices jumped 0.7% in a single month in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the biggest monthly increase in nearly four years. Gas has pushed above $4.50 a gallon, according to AAA.

And the middle class itself is shrinking. Pew Research Center found the share of Americans in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 51% by 2023. The backbone of the country is getting thinner every decade.

The split is now extreme.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, found that the top 10% of earners account for about 49.2% of all consumer spending — the highest share since records began in 1989. Everyone in the bottom 80%, earning under roughly $175,000, has seen their spending barely keep pace with inflation.

An economy carried by the richest tenth is not strong. It is top-heavy, and one nervous quarter from those households would shake the whole thing.

Now look at where Washington’s energy is going.

The administration is consumed by the world stage — the war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, ceasefire diplomacy, oil, and trade fights stretching across continents. Those matters are real, and leaders have to manage them. But a government cannot run on foreign policy alone.

While the White House looks overseas, the family back home watching its grocery bill climb is getting silence. Diplomacy in the Gulf does not put food on a table in Ohio.

And here is the quiet failure almost no one is talking about.

The federal government employs offices and officials whose entire job is to help these families — appointees placed at agencies built to support small businesses, workers, and communities. Too many of them are missing in action.

The programs exist. The doors are shut. Emails from the community go unanswered. Outreach from business leaders goes unanswered. Even letters from members of the Senate and Congress go unanswered.

People hired and sworn to serve the public have simply gone quiet, and the help meant for Main Street never leaves the building.

It does not have to be this way, and we have proven it.

As one example, in April 2024, the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce convened the first National Chambers of Commerce Leaders Roundtable inside the U.S. Department of Commerce, putting chamber leaders from around the country face-to-face with federal officials who rarely meet Main Street.

It worked, and the government said so in writing.

In a letter dated December 9, 2024, then-Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves credited the chamber’s initiative and said it stimulated economic growth from the grassroots level.

And yet the new administration has repeatedly promised engagement while postponing it again and again. That is what bottom-up engagement looks like when officials actually engage, show up, and work alongside the boots-on-the-ground business and community leaders who understand these challenges best. The Department of Commerce itself recognized the value of this approach. The initiative was intended to continue bringing together chamber leaders and federal officials to strengthen economic growth from the grassroots level, but despite repeated commitments, efforts to continue hosting and expanding this initiative have been pushed off time and again.

It has been promised since and left to sit idle.

Here is what Washington should understand: this has not gone unnoticed.

The American people see exactly where the attention is going, and where it is not. The record-low mood is the receipt. The skipped meals are the receipt. The second jobs are the receipt.

Voters of every party are watching a government that has time for every capital in the world but no time for their kitchen table.

So the demand is plain.

Refocus.

Balance the global agenda with the home front. Make every agency answer the mail. Hold appointees accountable when they go missing, and replace those who refuse to do the job they were given.

Forgetting the middle class is not smart, and it will not be rewarding.

A family skipping meals and working two jobs remembers who showed up and who disappeared. That memory does not fade by Election Day.

Washington can see the middle class now — or be reminded at the polls that it looked away.

JBizNews Desk — Washington

© JBizNews.com All Rights Reserved. Reproduction or distribution without written permission is prohibited.