Americans are struggling with everyday costs including medical care and food, worrisome poll finds

A new poll has found that Americans are feeling squeezed by increased prices and believe they have few viable avenues for cutting down on costs to compensate.

Nearly half of Americans responding to a new Politico poll said they believe the cost of groceries, utilities, health care, housing, and transportation is too high.

More than a quarter — 27 percent — said they had skipped medical appointments sometime in the last two years because of costs, and another 23 percent said they had skipped purchasing prescription drugs for the same reason.

When Americans are struggling to afford medicine and food, they are also spending less on diversions. Some 37 percent of respondents said they couldn’t afford to attend professional sporting events with their friends or family due to budget concerns, and nearly half — 46 percent — said they could not afford to purchase plane tickets for vacations.

The very real affordability crisis in the U.S. has been rejected as a “hoax” by President Donald Trump. That line has been repeated by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said Americans’ concerns about the rising cost of living are simply a “Democratic hoax” meant to undermine Trump’s economic victories.

Trump told Politico this week that he would give himself an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” grade on his economic performance as president and has insisted that “prices are all coming down” while wages are increasing.

Americans, according to the poll, aren’t buying his lines.

Only 36 percent of respondents said they believe that while tariffs are hurting the economy now, they will pay off over time. Fewer — 22 percent — of Trump voters said they believe his tariffs are helping the U.S. economy now.

Elsewhere in the economy, Americans are fed up with the cost of higher education. Only 25 percent of Americans believe that college tuition, for example, is worth the tens of thousands — sometimes hundreds of thousands — of dollars it takes to graduate from a university with a degree.

While the trades pay well, the data still show that college graduates on average earn more than those who are not. The U.S. Census Bureau also found that the median income of households with a college graduate as the primary breadwinner is more than double the median income of households whose primary earner has only a high school degree.

It’s hard to worry about college, though, when Americans are struggling to put food on the table. The poll found that more than half of respondents said they found it difficult to pay for food, and 55 percent blamed Trump and his policies for grocery prices. When broken down to Trump voters specifically, some 22 percent of respondents said they placed the blame for food prices on the president.

When polled on health care costs, Republican respondents were split along MAGA and non-MAGA lines regarding whether they believed the GOP would actually bring prices down. The poll found that 84 percent of MAGA Republicans trusted lawmakers to reduce the cost of health insurance, while only 49 percent of non-MAGA Republicans shared that view.

Only 24 percent of non-MAGA Republicans trusted Democrats to achieve lower health care prices.