Americans Need Extra $11-14,000 Just to Keep Up: ‘You Can’t Wiggle Out of Buying Food’

Americans have been feeling a financial squeeze for several years due to record-high inflation, but new data reveals how much consumers have to spend just to keep up with a basic standard of living.

The average household must spend an additional $11,434 annually just to maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed in January of 2021, according to a new report from Republican members of the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee.

The report examines government data like the Consumer Price Index and Consumer Expenditure Survey to analyze the impact of inflation by state. The results: many Americans are still struggling to keep up with skyrocketing costs. 

“Middle- and low-income Americans aren’t doing well enough — they are living fragilely on the edge,” Gene Ludwig, chairman of the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) told CBS News. 

LISEP is a think thank whose own analysis found that Americans needed almost $14,000 of additional income to cover basic goods, on average, in 2022. 

“Food costs and basic costs are up more than other costs,” Ludwig added. “Putting on a Thanksgiving dinner costs the same if you’re a lower- or upper-income American, but for a lower-income American it’s a bigger portion of

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