The Inflation Data Is Telling A Different Story Than What People Are Feeling

Today’s Letter Is Brought To You By TikTok for Business ! Most companies are already spending on search, social, and display ads. But many are still underestimating TikTok for Business . With 200M+ monthly active users in the U.S. and 51% unique reach, TikTok for Business delivers audiences you can’t reach on other platforms. In 2025 alone, 11.8 million crypto-related videos were published on the platform. The conversation is already happening there. The question is whether your brand is part of it. TikTok for Business offers full-funnel advertising solutions built for performance — combining creator-led storytelling, performance advertising, and robust measurement tools to drive business impact. If you’re a founder, CMO, or growth lead, check out how TikTok for Business can help you accomplish your goals. Learn More To investors, Inflation appears to have peaked and is now starting to come down according to the CPI report yesterday. The government reported 3.5% CPI and core CPI came in at 2.6%. These are ice cold numbers compared to economists expectations. The headline CPI number fell -0.4% in the last month, which is the largest inflation decline month-over-month in more than 6 years. Naturally, this report is being celebrated by economists, politicians, and investors. The lower numbers significantly decrease the odds of the Fed hiking interest rates later this year. A big contributing factor to the free fall in official inflation numbers is a -9% drop in gasoline and fuel prices. You can draw a straight line between consumer inflation and the hopeful ending of the Iran war. But there is one big problem with this report that no one is talking about. The data is tricking everyone. If you are an investor or a business executive, this report makes things seem like things are getting better. And technically that is true in terms of rate of change, but the average American doesn’t care about the rate of change. They simply care about the aggregate cost of living. Take New York City as an example. This weekend it was reported that median rents in the city have risen 8% in the last year and hit a new all-time high of $5,295 per month. I don’t care what the CPI number says, majority of people can’t afford to pay $5,000 per month to live in an apartment. A similar story is playing out at your local grocery store. Eggs, milk, peanut butter, and a plethora of other items have skyrocketed in the last 5 or 6 years. Every time I go to the grocery store, it feels like I am guaranteed to spend $75 - $100. Again, the data can say whatever it wants, yet this rise in cost is putting ridiculous pressure on the average American. The reason I feel so strongly about this situation is because I have started spending more time talking to people outside of the business and finance community. I wanted to understand what their actual experience has been. Not what the data says, but what are the people feeling in their life. Additionally, I wanted to understand why socialism is on the rise and there seems to be a widespread belief that financial success is a result worth condemning. In an effort to get answers, I recently went to Yankee Stadium and asked people for thoughts on why everything is so expensive. You can watch the video below. [warning: there is some foul language from folks, but I promise no fun was had by anyone :) ] My big takeaway from these conversations was everyone knows life got more expensive, yet none of them can articulate why it happened. There was no talk of CPI, the national debt, or interest rates. That isn’t in the vernacular of the average citizen. They speak in terms of gas, groceries, and rent. Each of those items has exploded in cost over the last half-decade, which is changing the way people act and think. So just remember, while it was great to see the lower CPI numbers from the government report yesterday, there is no relief on the way for majority of US citizens. Prices are not coming back down any time soon. A lower inflation number merely means prices are going up slower than they were, but they are still continuing to increase. We need widespread deflation in consumer prices to actually have an impact on affordability in the country. That means we have to build more housing, reduce regulation for small business, and hope AI can flourish in a way that creates the promised productivity boom. The situation is not ideal. You have a government incentivized to keep printing money and destroying the purchasing power of the dollar. And the average American is the one paying the penalty for this lack of discipline from our leaders. You don’t have to believe me. You can just hear the people explain it for yourselves if you are open-minded enough to listen to them. 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