Big Sarge Economy Watch
What It Costs to Live Here Now. An independent read on the national economy and the working American, written by Wayne Ince from Tampa, Florida. For readers following the Economy Watch series, this blog provides context for what it means to live through today’s changes.
The economy on paper and the economy in your kitchen are two different animals. One shows up in a quarterly report. The other shows up when you swipe your card at the pump, open the daycare invoice, or read the letter from your insurer. If you’ve been keeping up with the Economy Watch newsletter, you know it tracks the second economy, the one wage earners actually live in. Every issue walks the receipts: real numbers, plain language, no spin.
The fronts we track
Prices climb in the places that hit a paycheck first. Each issue checks the ones that matter most on our Economy Watch radar:
- Groceries: what it takes to fill the cart now versus a year ago.
- Gas: the number at the pump and where it’s headed.
- Rent: the stickiest line in inflation, and why flat isn’t affordable.
- Childcare: the second rent nobody voted for.
- Healthcare: premiums, subsidies, and the cliff underneath them.
- Utilities & energy: the bill you can’t turn off.
Latest issue
Vol. 1, Issue 16: What It Costs to Live Here Now
October 26, 2026. The latest edition covers groceries, gas, rent, childcare, healthcare, and utilities, followed by the complete special supplement, The Raise That Bought Less. The supplement retains its October 23 date and Issue 15 designation, with its source notes and numerical-reconciliation caveat included.
Supplements
Standalone pieces that sit alongside a numbered issue when a single story earns its own read.
- The Raise That Bought Less (companion to Issue 15, included in full with Issue 16). The weekly-pay squeeze, occupational and demographic differences, and what unadjusted group medians can and cannot establish.
- The Raise That Arrives Late: a 3.6 percent Social Security raise that pays back last year’s prices (companion to Issue 15). Social Security and SSI rise 3.6 percent in 2027, about $75 a month for the average retiree. The raise reimburses prices seniors already paid, a projected $6.60 Part B increase comes off the top, the index behind it was built for workers rather than retirees, and the trust fund still hits the wall in 2032.
- Fourteen Hours of Diesel: six months of sanctions relief for Moscow, less than a day of supply for you (companion to Issue 14). On October 9 the President thanked Vladimir Putin for “massive amounts” of diesel. The first shipment covers about fourteen hours of American demand, the national diesel average is still $6.28, and the Treasury waiver that allows it runs to April 7, 2027, five months past Election Day.
- The Ninety-Dollar Bribe: a pre-election Medicare check that does not cover half a month (companion to Issue 13). Four weeks before the midterms, the White House is mailing more than twenty million seniors a one-time ninety-dollar check, paid for by draining two billion dollars from the Medicare Improvement Fund, while dangling a five-thousand-dollar payout if Republicans keep Congress. The arithmetic, the 2020 precedent, and the party’s real Medicare record.
- The One Bill You Control: eight legal ways to lower your taxable income for 2026 (companion to Issue 12). You cannot vote out the Fed or argue the pump down a nickel, but your taxable income is the one number you actually control. The 401(k) at $24,500, the HSA at $4,400 and $8,750, the new $40,400 state-and-local tax cap, tax-loss harvesting, and more.
- The Cure Tax: the Fed’s first rate hike in three years lands on your kitchen table (companion to Issue 11). On September 16 the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark to 3.75 to 4.00 percent, unanimously, under Chair Kevin Warsh, to fight an inflation driven by oil, tariffs, and an AI building boom. Households did not cause it, but the cure arrives as higher credit-card, auto-loan, and mortgage costs.
- The Official Story: a record-low poverty rate that does not tell the full story (companion to Issue 11). The Census Bureau put the official 2025 poverty rate at a record-low 10.2 percent while the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which counts what families actually spend on rent, medical care, and childcare, held flat at 13.1 percent. The headline moved. The people at the bottom did not.
- The Vacancy Sign: gas and airfare are emptying the tourist towns (companion to Issue 10). Airfare is up 23.4 percent and airlines’ jet-fuel bill jumped 84 percent in a year. Florida is down 1.4 percent for the first half and Las Vegas down 7.5 percent in 2025, its worst outside the pandemic. The fuel shock reaches the towns built on travel.
- The Fuel-Cost Squeeze: gas and airfare, one barrel (companion to Issue 10). AAA regular hit $4.316 a gallon and airline fares are up 23.4 percent over the year, both climbing off the same crude. The household cut of the same fuel shock, from the pump to the boarding pass.
- The Chokepoint Tax: two straits, one fuel bill (companion to Issue 10). Brent broke $100 as the Strait of Hormuz came under fire and Houthi forces seized Mayun island and the port of Mokha on Bab el-Mandeb. Two waterways on the far side of the planet, landing on your fuel receipt.
- The Kremlin Handshake: two U.S. envoys, three hours in Moscow, joint economic projects on the table (companion to Issue 9). Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner sat with Vladimir Putin on September 5, 2026. The Kremlin readout named joint economic ventures. The U.S. Senate voted 86 to 11 on August 7 to prohibit all American investment in Russia. Two governments are being negotiated with. Ask whose family stands to profit.
- The Beef Bribe: a ninety-day discount that expires when the votes get counted (companion to Issue 7). The White House’s Friday tariff waiver on up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef, read against the election calendar and the ranchers’ response.
Previous issues
- Vol. 1, Issue 15: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 14: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 13: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 12: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 11: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 10: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 9: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 8: Labor Day Edition
- Vol. 1, Issue 7: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 6: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 5: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 4: What It Costs to Live Here Now
- Vol. 1, Issue 3: One Cool Print, Same Hot Bills
- Vol. 1, Issue 2: Losing Ground in Slow Motion
- Vol. 1, Issue 1: What It Costs to Live Here Now
Kitchen-table explainer: early 401(k) withdrawals
Reader resource: Early 401(k) withdrawals: what it costs before 59½. Pull money from a traditional 401(k) before 59½ and the IRS takes ordinary income tax plus a 10 percent penalty under Section 72(t). Read the full math, a worked $50,000 example, and every exception that waives the penalty, including the one for called-up reservists.
Every issue
Browse the full archive of Big Sarge Economy Watch as new issues land: Economy Watch archive →
An independent read on the national economy and the working Americans. Founded and written by Wayne Ince. Tampa, Florida.