“Inflation cooled, lower than expected,” read the financial press on the release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July. One only needs to look carefully: when month-to-month changes are down, those alone get the headline. When they are up, as they are in July, the headline focuses on the 12-month trend. Every time.

Based on the data release we have, the “cooling” is actually up from June to July, if you can believe it.

(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)

Most of the change is driven by housing but the CPI is far from capturing the whole. By using a black-box statistic called Owners Equivalent Rent, the CPI is able to completely bypass and not report data we actually have on housing prices. And that’s just the start of the problems we’ve discussed many times. Even so, the CPI still reveals something. Even then, we keep being told life is better than ever.

We know it is not true. Everyone to whom you speak knows the financial and economic strains of our time. They are grave and growing, and most data points are now underscoring the point. The jobs market even in hourly employment is freezing up, while inflation continues to take its toll. It is well known, finally, that we have lost far more than 20 percent of our purchasing power over four years. How much is still largely a guess based on spending patterns.

The distance between the official data—which still shows rising real output—and the consumer surveys is striking to behold. In some ways, the official economic data of our times is another iteration of the growing sense that we are not being told the whole truth in many sectors of life.

However, there are still times when the truth seeps out. CNN commissioned a well-constructed poll of about 2,000 random people to find out where they stand on personal finances. The headline number: nearly 40 percent of Americans are struggling to pay their bills. That is up from 28 percent from only three years ago, and a higher number than back in 2008–09, the period known as the Great Recession.

Two-thirds of people say that the number one issue they face is the cost of living and paying their bills. The typical American is spending nearly $1,000 more per month compared with three years ago just to pay living expenses. That is according to Moody’s, but it also fits with the intuition we all have. It suggests a dramatic decline in real household income, despite what the Bureau of Labor Statistics claims.

The survey further reports that a third of Americans say that they have to take an additional job to make ends meet. This has disproportionately affected Latinos and black Americans and those under the age of 45.

Nearly 70 percent report that they have cut back spending on entertainment, changed their grocery buying, and otherwise stopped with the extras like vacations and trips. Three in five say they have cut back on driving. Two-thirds are putting bills on revolving credit cards charging more than 20 percent. These trends show no change despite the seeming taming of inflation.

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