Rising gas and grocery prices tied to the ongoing conflict with Iran are forcing Americans across the country to cut back on driving, eating out, and basic household spending, and polling shows economic anxiety climbing fast.
Sandy Miller, a 63-year-old in Worthington, Indiana, who cares for her disabled adult daughter, put it plainly: two bags of essentials, bread, milk, eggs, a few household supplies, now cost her $100 at the grocery store. She described herself as "falling behind a little more every month." The cost of gas, she said, is "a constant stress." She makes fewer trips just to save fuel.
Miller voted for Donald Trump in 2024 and once called herself a "strong Republican." Today, she told ABC News she would not vote for him again if given the chance. Her frustration is not ideological. It is arithmetic. When everything rises but your salary, she said, "you have to make cuts somewhere."
She is far from alone. Nearly eight in ten Americans now rate the economy poorly. Three major polls released in July 2026 paint a picture of a country where financial stress is spreading, and where confidence in Washington's ability to fix it is shrinking.
A late-July poll from the Associated Press and NORC found that 41 percent of Americans said they were concerned about affording groceries in the coming months. That figure stood at 24 percent in April, a near-doubling in roughly three months. Nearly half called the cost of groceries a major source of stress, and more than six in ten said they had already cut back on eating out.
Gas was almost as painful. Forty percent called fuel costs a major source of stress, up from under 27 percent in February. A Pew Research Center poll published July 23 found that 56 percent of Americans were "very concerned" about gas prices, up from 34 percent in January. Nearly two-thirds expressed the same level of concern about housing costs.
And a CNN poll from July found that about three-quarters of Americans said gas prices had caused financial hardship for their household. Just 30 percent approved of how Trump was handling the economy, down from 44 percent in March 2025. Among Republicans, that approval dropped 22 points, from 88 percent to 66 percent. Democratic approval remained in single digits both times.
Those numbers tell a story that no messaging campaign can paper over. The squeeze is real, it is broad, and it is getting worse month by month.
Brian Shirley, 59, a comedian, actor, and DJ in Charleston, South Carolina, described himself as "treading water pretty good right now." But treading water takes effort. He clips coupons for groceries. He bunches his errands into single trips to burn less gas.
"Every time you walk outside, you spend money. You try to coordinate your errands."
About a year ago, a new company bought his apartment building and raised the rent 50 percent. Shirley, a Republican, moved into a shared community house. He now DJs pool parties around the Charleston area. He watches luxury apartment towers go up nearby and shakes his head.
"They're putting up all these brand new ridiculous apartments. It was beautiful, but who the h*** can afford it?"
He said he misses being on his own. And he believes the economy would improve "if we get this war over with, which Trump doesn't seem to be in any hurry to do."
Joseph Johnson, 56, works for an investment group in Conyers, Georgia, and calls himself an independent voter. He drives an electric car more than his gas vehicle to manage fuel costs. He has trimmed spending to live within his budget as he prepares for retirement.
"I'm very concerned with food prices rising, gas prices rising. Just the cost of living: Rising."
Johnson pointed to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which much of the world's oil passes, as a chokepoint that defies easy solutions. "There is no answer to the Strait of Hormuz," he said. The ripple effects are unavoidable: "Higher gas prices means higher food prices, higher energy, higher everything."
His assessment was blunt. "You either deal with it or complain."
Walter Mortaya, 52, drives a semi-truck and lives in Adelanto, California. His company pays for the fuel in his work truck, but Mortaya covers the gas for his commute, roughly an hour each morning and almost two hours back. He has started working more hours just to meet the same financial goals he had before prices climbed.
"Gas is crazy. I try to drive less. If I can walk to places, I do."
He and his family eat at home more and go out less. He uses apps to hunt for the cheapest gas. He does not speed, a small discipline aimed at squeezing a few more miles from each tank. A self-identified Democrat, Mortaya blamed the situation on "starting a war that we don't have to."
His outlook was grim. "I expect it to get worse. The prices of gas goes up, then the prices of everything else goes up. A domino effect."
President Trump has projected optimism about the negotiations with Iran. He said Sunday that a new deal was "imminent." On Thursday, he described the talks as "working out quite well" but added, "you never know" what could happen. On Wednesday, he promised that oil and gas prices would fall as soon as the conflict ends.
Those assurances have not yet translated into relief at the pump or the checkout line. The AP/NORC numbers, the Pew data, and the CNN poll all moved in the same direction over the spring and summer of 2026: more stress, more cutbacks, less confidence. Gas prices topped four dollars a gallon as the conflict escalated, and a government report showed the U.S. economy slowed more than expected as the Iran situation took hold.
For a president who won in part on economic promises, the gap between "imminent" progress abroad and daily pain at home is a political vulnerability that no poll can disguise. Republican approval of his economic handling still sits at 66 percent, a number most presidents would envy in isolation, but one that represents a 22-point slide from where it stood just sixteen months earlier. That kind of erosion comes from the kitchen table, not from cable news.
The four Americans ABC News spoke with span the political spectrum, a Republican, an independent, a former Republican now disenchanted, and a Democrat. They live in South Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, and California. They work different jobs and drive different vehicles. But every one of them described the same basic math: prices keep rising, paychecks do not, and the strategies for coping, coupons, fewer trips, eating in, walking, are getting thinner.
Wars have costs that extend well beyond the battlefield. When a trucker in the California desert skips meals out and a grandmother in rural Indiana counts her grocery bags, those costs have arrived. The question now is whether Washington notices before the midterms do the noticing for them.