Policy changes are set to cost middle-income households about $1,700 this year, a report finds

A report summarised by the Hindustan Times finds that President Donald Trump’s policies will cost middle-income Americans $1,700 more in 2026, while the richest 1% save $12,560¹. The measures counted include new tax provisions under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the end of the COVID-era tax credits for Affordable Care Act health insurance¹.

USA Today reported the same analysis, saying the policies raised costs for all but the top 1% and summarising the finding that they cost every American household $355,000 over 10 years². The two accounts describe different measures of the same package, one annual and one cumulative, so they are not directly comparable.

These are the conclusions of a single report rather than official statistics, and neither account quotes the administration disputing them.

Why it matters to investors

Household cash flow, rather than headline output, is what decides consumer-facing earnings. The Wall Street Journal framed the question voters are answering as whether the economy has improved during the president’s second term, noting that food and gas prices are up but so are 401(k) balances⁶.

The sentiment data have moved one way. Politico reported that consumer sentiment is now more depressed than it was when Wall Street melted down and joblessness soared following the 2008 financial crisis⁴. The New York Times said measures of consumer sentiment have worsened and that polls show voters poised to punish Republicans³. In Michigan, CBS News found sentiment lower than at almost any other time, attributing it to high fuel and housing costs and wages that are not keeping pace with inflation⁵.

Income insecurity is also elevated. The Federal Reserve’s 2025 survey found income uncertainty among US families at a record 37%, IBTimes reported, and more recent sentiment data suggest confidence has stayed weak⁷.

What to watch

The gap between the aggregate data and the household experience is the thing to track. A rising 401(k) balance and a higher grocery bill can coexist, and they are reaching different parts of the same household budget⁶.

For positioning, the near-term signal is whether discretionary spending follows sentiment down or continues to diverge from it^3,5. The distributional split in the report, a cost at the middle and a gain at the top, points to the same question from the other direction: which consumer cohort the earnings are coming from^1,2.