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groundwork collaborative
Fed's May Beige Book Shows Working Families Falling Behind As Trump Is 'Choosing to Keep Prices High'
Middle-income households were "squeezing more life out of every dollar before deciding to spend it" last month, while low-income families and individuals "showed greater financial strain."
Jun 05, 2026
The Beige Book, a monthly report on consumer spending, labor markets, and inflation from the Federal Reserve's 12 districts across the country, offers an up-to-date look on how the US economy is impacting households across the US—and this week, the report for May showed a continuation of the trend that accelerated after President Donald Trump joined Israel in attacking Iran more than three months ago.
"This month’s report, the third since the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, reveals that soaring input costs are triggering price hikes for consumers," said the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative.
The report notes that regional contacts at the Federal Reserve's districts described middle-income households as "squeezing more life out of every dollar before deciding to spend it,” while low-income families and individuals "showed greater financial strain."
"Overall, there were reports of increased credit card usage, fewer retail visits, and stronger demand for necessities," reads the Beige Book.
"Higher-income households remained resilient and less sensitive to price increase," the Federal Reserve reported, indicating a "K-shaped economy"—in which wealthy Americans are represented by the top angled line and middle- and lower-income households are represented by the line angled toward the lower right.
The report comes as peace talks with Iran are stalled and the Strait of Hormuz—a key waterway for trade, particularly for the world's oil supply, remains effectively closed following the US-Israeli invasion. Iran's retaliatory move has sent global oil prices soaring, with gas now costing $4.22 per gallon on average.
"High prices for essentials like groceries and a tank of gas are busting household budgets and eliminating breathing room for middle- and low-income families."
"Numerous contacts mentioned the conflict in the Middle East as a source of cost pressures and heightened business uncertainty," reads the Beige Book. "Higher energy and fertilizer prices contributed to a moderate increase in food prices, especially for fresh produce."
Manufacturers and retailers are also facing increased shipping costs, while auto repair rates and used-car financing rates "remained very high" in parts of the country.
The report was released days after the administration launched new strikes against Iran last weekend, and as Iran announced it was suspending peace talks with the US over Israel's continued targeting of Lebanon.
Alex Jacquez, Groundwork's chief of policy and advocacy, said that "Trump is choosing to keep prices high for working families."
"High prices for essentials like groceries and a tank of gas are busting household budgets and eliminating breathing room for middle- and low-income families," said Jacquez. "Despite his own party’s opposition, the president is forging ahead with his reckless, costly war—and leaving working Americans in the dust.”
The Beige Book also describes a "low-hire, low-fire" job market, "with workers increasingly reluctant to change jobs because of economic uncertainty."
"Widespread economic uncertainty from continued tariffs and persistent inflation means businesses are delaying expansion, leading cautious employees to remain in their current roles—even if it means staying in worse-paying jobs," said Groundwork.
The Federal Reserve pointed to a contact in the construction industry in Cleveland, Ohio who said employees are "nervous and stressed, as well as a human resources firm in Richmond, Virginia that reported "that clients have explicitly slowed hiring for new roles due to uncertainty, while their existing employees seemed reluctant to leave 'something stable' for new opportunities."
Jacquez said that based on the report, "Americans lucky enough to be employed full-time are losing faith in their ability to keep up with inflation as paychecks lag and the labor market stalls out."
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'The Country Is Not Trump's to Liquidate': New Report Details Depths of Presidential Corruption and Grift
"Americans know they’re being ripped off and are demanding accountability."
Jun 03, 2026
The American Economic Liberties Project and Groundwork Collaborative on Wednesday released a joint report detailing how President Donald Trump's unprecedented corruption is padding his own pockets at the expense of US taxpayers.
The report—titled "The Price of Corruption: How Trump's Pay-to-Play Administration is Driving Up Costs for Working Families"—explains how Trump isn't just using the presidency to enrich himself, but leaving ordinary Americans to foot the bill for his corrupt dealings.
The report notes that the TrumpRx website, which purports to offer Americans deep discounts on drugs, is actually a scheme for funneling even more money to large pharmaceutical companies.
"When Trump rolled out TrumpRX earlier this year, the administration claimed it was a way for Americans to access more affordable prescription drugs," the report states. "Instead, the platform fails to disclose information about less expensive generic alternatives and, in some instances, charges consumers more for products that are available for less elsewhere."
Rather than providing real relief, the report charges, TrumpRx "serves as free advertisement for Big Pharma and may be lining the pockets of the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who is on the board of prescription drug platform BlinkRX, which stands to benefit from the administration’s promotion of direct-to-patient medicine sales."
The report also highlights the way that Trump has used his tariffs, which raise the cost of imported goods for US consumers, as a personal self-enrichment tool, such as when he slashed tariffs on Switzerland "just a few days after Swiss business leaders presented him with a personalized gold bar worth more than $130,000 and a Rolex desk clock."
Trump levied tariffs against Brazil last year in retaliation for that country convicting a political ally, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, of plotting a coup to illegally stay in power after he lost an election to current President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva.
"Americans paid the price for Trump’s international allies breaking the law," states the report, "as coffee imported from Brazil surged to a 40% increase in price."
One particularly egregious instance of Trump's corruption, the report explains, comes from the president's unprecedented number of pardons of political allies, including hundreds of rioters who violently stormed the US Capitol on his behalf on January 6, 2021.
Beyond the high-profile rioter cases, the report shines a spotlight on a number of white-collar criminals who have received presidential clemency, including Paul Walczak, "a nursing home executive convicted of tax evasion" who was pardoned "three weeks after his mother donated $1 million to Trump at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser," and cryptocurrency mogul Changpeng Zhao, who received a pardon months after helping boost the Trump family's crypto venture.
The report notes that the Trump administration has also stacked regulatory agencies in ways that directly benefit the business interests of the president's family members, most prominently in the realm of online prediction markets tied to Donald Trump Jr.
"Over the past year, Donald Trump Jr. has served as a strategic advisor to Kalshi and a large investor in Polymarket, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)—the agency overseeing these firms—has acted as their ally, rather than their watchdog," the report says. "Both firms had actively lobbied Trump’s CFTC to block states from regulating prediction markets in the same way they regulate gambling companies."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, called the report on Trump's corruption "a reminder that we cannot afford to look away or pretend that any of this is normal."
"The country," Harper added, "is not Trump’s to liquidate."
Molly Claflin, senior fellow at Groundwork Collaborative, made the case that Trump's corruption and the economic pain being felt by Americans are inseparable.
“As working families buckle under the weight of Trump’s high prices, the president is further driving up costs by abusing his position to direct taxpayer-funded kickbacks to his family and political allies," said Claflin. "His erratic policymaking is making daily life more expensive. Americans know they’re being ripped off and are demanding accountability."
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As US Drivers Suffer High Gas Prices, Big Oil Celebrates and Plans Big Payouts for Shareholders
"These companies want Americans to believe price spikes are simply the unavoidable result of global events, but their own executives are openly telling investors that volatility, conflict, and supply disruptions are good for business."
May 26, 2026
A Tuesday report from Groundwork Collaborative reveals how fossil fuel companies are not merely scoring windfall profits from President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran, but also using that money to reward shareholders rather than providing relief to consumers.
The price of gas has soared since Trump attacked Iran without any congressional authorization in late February, going from an average of under $3 per gallon at the start of the war to $4.49 per gallon as of Tuesday.
As US drivers have paid more at the pump, however, fossil fuel firms have been concerned with paying out dividends and conducting stock buybacks expanding production to lower prices, Groundwork Collaborative's report finds.
Among other things, the report notes that ExxonMobil is on pace to deliver $20 billion worth of stock buybacks in 2026, even as CEO Darren Woods has insisted that the company's decisions on production will be "grounded in value, not volume."
Additionally, the report documents how Shell recently announced "another 5% dividend increase and more than $3 billion in buybacks," with CEO Wael Sawan describing the company's commitment to paying shareholders as "sacrosanct."
Chevron has pledged roughly $3 billion in quarterly stock buybacks, while also saying increasing dividends for shareholders is its "first and foremost" priority.
Chevron CFO Eimear Bonner, the report adds, recently revealed that the company has no plans to boost output in response to high energy prices, stating that "capital spending and production outlooks are consistent with previous guidance."
Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, accused Big Oil of using Trump's illegal war as cover to keep prices high without taking any steps to reduce pain at the pump.
"These companies want Americans to believe price spikes are simply the unavoidable result of global events," said Owens, "but their own executives are openly telling investors that volatility, conflict, and supply disruptions are good for business. They are choosing buybacks over production, shareholder payouts over affordability, and corporate profiteering over the economic security of working families.”
The high fuel prices aren't being felt just in the US, but across the world.
Karthik Sankaran, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, explained in a Tuesday analysis how oil prices are hitting nations in the Global South particularly hard.
"A recent story in The New York Times described how the price for transporting corn into refugee camps in Somalia had doubled or even tripled, as had the price of water at diesel-powered public tubewells," Sankaran wrote. "Meanwhile, protests this week in Kenya against fuel price hikes have led to four deaths, and political and financial stresses are mounting across the continent."
Sankaran also pointed to problems in India, where "sharp jumps in the price of liquid petroleum gas have hit urban households hard, particularly those whose breadwinners work in small-scale industrial establishments."
Despite the actue global economic pain, energy experts who spoke with CNN on Tuesday expressed skepticism that the crisis would abate anytime soon, despite Trump's regular hyping of a deal to end the conflict.
Rory Johnston, an oil market researcher and founder of Commodity Context, told CNN that he wasn't buying optimism from commodities futures markets after Trump claimed to have made significant progress on an agreement with Iran.
"Nothing has fundamentally changed," Johnston said. "The strait remains closed."
Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said that a deal to end the war wouldn't instantly bring energy prices back to where they were before the war began, estimating it could take months just to get 80% of the pre-war oil supply flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.
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