A tank of gas costs almost half a day’s wages, while many Americans are skipping meals due to rising grocery prices. Beyond the thousands of lives lost, the war in Iran isn’t just driving up costs at the gas pump, but on every item transported or manufactured. AI data centers are being put up across the country, increasing energy prices and guzzling water.

Trump’s disastrous handling of the economy drove working people to vote for Democrats, who were able to capitalize on the cost-of-living crisis that people can’t take any more of. While the Democrats’ victory can temporarily raise hopes for working people, they will have no solutions to the deep economic crisis we are facing. 

Are The Vibes Just Off?

The bosses and fat cats at investment banks say the economy is great, but great for who? Capitalist economists are characterizing the current economy as a “vibecession,” gaslighting working people into thinking they are just imagining their plight at the grocery store and gas pump. But their glowing statistics just can’t capture the full picture. Economic growth in the US is overwhelmingly resting on one big bet on AI, which has yet to turn a decisive profit, and whose bubble is on the brink of collapse. Working people are already feeling a recession, with the cost of living outpacing wages and fewer jobs on the market, especially for young people. Working people are choosing between rent and groceries, healthcare and childcare, light bill and water bill, while the rich gamble their money in the stock market or purchase their next yacht. 

Trump’s war in Iran, now reaching its ninth month, has created mass disruptions in oil production and trade, fueling inflation and higher costs for all goods sold. Without a clear end in sight, uncertainty surrounding the war leads to higher costs. If that wasn’t enough, climate catastrophes are increasing at a rapid rate, impacting supply chains, displacing people from their homes, and causing crop failures. These aren’t just “bad vibes”—they are the lived reality of millions of working people across the globe. 

Capitalism is an inherently contradictory system, where a small minority demands more and more of a finite planet while working people, who make society run, get more and more squeezed. Inflation is baked into this crisis-ridden system and is increasingly difficult to tame. Major economic downturns, like the dot-com bubble or the 2008 housing market crash, are not aberrations that come falling from the sky, but part of a system predicated on chasing never-ending profits. Each crisis compounds on the last, and each “solution” the capitalists come up with just lays the basis for the next crisis. The vibes aren’t just off—the system is spiraling deeper into crisis. War, climate catastrophe, and a volatile economy: these are the new normals of this era.

We Deserve Better 

It can be hard to see a better life when you are forced to “just skip a meal here or there” or decide it’s time to get a second (or third) job—but we actually don’t have to accept this. We can look at the struggles breaking out across Europe, where hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets, and where the cost-of-living crisis is a key feature of many protests. In places like Syria, Pakistan, and Guatemala, working people are protesting insane increases in fuel costs. Global struggle against the cost of living is necessary, and it’s crucial in the US, with collective anger growing at gas prices and new data center construction.

Rebuilding a militant labor movement is part of what is needed to fight the rising cost of living. Organized labor has the power to fight for strong contracts by shutting down profits through strike action, our strongest weapon as working people. This year, we have seen strikes in nursing and hospitality, historically underpaid sectors with short staffing and poor working conditions. 

Unions taking up serious contract battles with bold demands and launching campaigns to organize the unorganized could inspire people nationwide to fight for more. But to truly address the cost of living, unions need to decisively break from the Democrats—who are tied to many of the same billionaires and corporations as the Republicans—to build a workers’ party that actually fights in the interest of working people.

Demands like a $25/hour minimum wage, free healthcare, and national rent control are popular precisely because they address the cost-of-living crisis, and a workers’ party should organize and fight for them. But to really end the cycle of suffering, we must tear out the root cause of our problems: capitalism itself. Without changing the system, we will continue to see the cycle repeat. What’s really needed is to replace the small minority at the top with a democratically planned economy, where our class decides how our economy runs, putting our needs and the planet over profit. A socialist world is possible if we build the movement to win one!