Dec. 24 (UPI) — Americans are not in a jolly mood when it comes to spending for the holidays, with a majority saying it’s been difficult to afford things, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey released Wednesday.
The nationally representative sample of 2,267 U.S. adults was interviewed between Dec. 15 and 17, and asked 16 questions about the holidays and the economy in general.
With items costing more now than they did last year, respondents cut down on gifts, entertainment and travel.
When asked about things to buy for the holiday, 58% said it would be difficult, including 17% “very difficult” and 41% “somewhat difficult.” Conversely, 8% said it will be “very easy to afford” and 34% “somewhat easy.”
Regarding prices compared with last year, 27% said they cost “a lot more,” 44% “a little more,” 24% “the same” and 5% “little less” or “lot less.”
People with lower incomes obviously are struggling more.
For family incomes under $50,00, it is “difficult to afford” for 71% versus 56% for $50,000 to $100,000 versus 58% more than $100,000.
Based on the type of gifts, 42% say they are buying fewer gifts for others, 32% less for food and drinks, 48% for airlines/travel and 50% for entertainment. Of those categories, more spending was 5% for airlines/travel, 6% for entertainment, 16% gifts for others, and 17% food and drinks.
Despite financial concerns, the respondents are more positive this holiday season with 48% saying they feel “grateful,” 43% “happy,” 39% “stressed,” 29% “excited,” 29% “exhausted” and 23% “sad.”
People are preferring to avoid paying for things on credit. It breaks down to 45% using no credit, 30% using some, 16% using mostly credit and 9% using all credit.
People were also asked about the economy in general, with 32% saying it is good and 63% bad.
Thirty-two percent of people said their financial situation was good for them, down from 39% in July. Since January is has been in the 30s.
Compared with past years, 41% said it is worse in 2025, 36% not changed and 22% better.
Inflation is on people’s minds with 76% saying their income hasn’t kept up with their income, which is close to 75% in July and 77% in February. The annual inflation rate in the United States is 2.7% ending in November compared with 3.0% in September 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Respondents were negative about the job market with 5% saying it’s “very good,” 29% “fairly good,” 32% “fairly bad,” 20% “very bad” and 14% not sure. The national unemployment rate was 4.6%, released by the U.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics, reflecting the labor market status for November.
Among the bright spots, more Americans rate the condition of the stock market as good than bad, especially for those whom the market’s performance matters a lot to their finances. The stock market was listed as 10% “very good,” 32% “fairly good,” 14% “fairly bad,” 6% “very bad” and 38% “not sure.”
Another good sign is gas prices, with 32% saying they are going down compared with 12% in October. Only 20% say fuel prices are going up vs. 34% in October, with 33% saying the are the same vs. 38% two months ago.
The current average is around $2.85 per gallon for unleaded, compared with $3.04 a year ago, according to AAA. The highest average was $5.02 on June 14, 2022.
The sample was weighted to be representative of adults nationwide, according to gender, age, race and education based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as 2024 presidential vote. The margin of error is 2.5 points.
New Yorkers gather for near Times Square at SantaCon NYC on Saturday as part of the annual worldwide event where thousands dress as Santa or other festive characters for a day of drinking, parading through city streets and celebrating the holidays. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
The holidays have arrived once again. You know, that annual festival of goodwill, compulsory spending and the dawning realization that Santa and Satan are anagrams.
Even in the best of years, Americans stagger through this season feeling financially woozy. This year, however, the picture is bleaker. And a growing number of Americans are feeling Grinchy.
Unemployment is at a four-year high, with Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, declaring, “The U.S. economy is in a hiring recession.” And a new PBS News/NPR/Marist poll finds that 70% of Americans say “the cost of living in the area where they live is not very affordable or not affordable at all.”
Is help on the way? Not likely. Affordable Care Act subsidies are expiring, and — despite efforts to force a vote in the House — it’s highly likely that nothing will be done about this before the end of the year. This translates to ballooning health insurance bills for millions of Americans. I will be among those hit with a higher monthly premium, which gives me standing to complain.
President Trump, meanwhile, remains firmly committed to policies that will exacerbate the rising cost of getting by. Trump’s tariffs — unless blocked by the Supreme Court — will continue to raise prices. And when it comes to his immigration crackdown, Trump is apparently unmoved by the tiresome fact that when you “disappear” workers, prices tend to go up.
Taken together, the Trump agenda amounts to an ambitious effort to raise the cost of living without the benefit of improved living standards. But if your money comes from crypto or Wall Street investments, you’re doing better than ever!
For the rest of us, the only good news is this: Unlike every other Trump scandal, most voters actually seem to care about what’s happening to their pocketbooks.
Politico recently found that erstwhile Trump voters backed Democrats in the 2025 governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia for the simple reason that things cost too much.
And Axios reports on a North Carolina focus group in which “11 of the 14 participants, all of whom backed Trump last November, said they now disapprove of his job performance. And 12 of the 14 say they’re more worried about the economy now than they were in January.”
Apparently, inflation is the ultimate reality check — which is horrible news for Republicans.
Trump’s great talent has always been the audacity to employ a “fake it ‘till you make it” con act to project just enough certainty to persuade the rest of us.
His latest (attempted) Jedi mind trick involves claiming prices are “coming down tremendously,” which is not supported by data or the lived experience of anyone who shops.
Trump may dismiss the affordability crisis as a “hoax” and a “con job,” but voters persist in believing the grocery scanner.
In response, Trump has taken to warning us that falling prices could cause “deflation,” which he now says is even worse than inflation. He’s not wrong about the economic theory, but it hardly seems worth worrying about given that prices are not falling.
Apparently, economic subtlety is something you acquire only after winning the White House.
Naturally, Trump wants to blame Joe Biden, the guy who staggered out of office 11 months ago. And yes, pandemic disruptions and massive stimulus spending helped fuel inflation. But voters elected Trump to fix the problem, which he promised to do “on Day One.”
Lacking tangible results, Trump is reverting to what has always worked for him: the assumption that — if he confidently repeats it enough times — his version of reality will triumph over math.
The difficulty now is that positive thinking doesn’t swipe at the register.
You can lie about the size of your inauguration crowd — no normal person can measure it and nobody cares. But you cannot tell people standing in line at the grocery store that prices are falling when they are actively handing over more money.
Pretending everything is fine goes over even worse when a billionaire president throws Gatsby-themed parties, renovates the Lincoln Bedroom and builds a huge new ballroom at the White House. The optics are horrible, and there’s no doubt they are helping fuel the political backlash.
But the main problem is the main problem.
At the end of the day, the one thing voters really care about is their pocketbooks. No amount of spin or “manifesting” an alternate reality will change that.
California’s potential to lead a national Democratic comeback was on full display as party leaders from across the country recently gathered in downtown Los Angeles.
But is the party ready to bet on the Golden State?
Appearances at the Democratic National Committee meeting by the state’s most prominent Democrats, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom, crystallized the peril and promise of California’s appeal. Harris failed to beat a politically wounded Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race and Newsom, now among President Trump’s most celebrated critics, is considered a top Democratic contender to replace the Republican president in the White House in 2028.
California policies on divisive issues such as providing expanded access to government-sponsored healthcare, aiding undocumented immigrants and supporting LGBTQ+ rights continually serve as a Rorschach test for the nation’s polarized electorate, providing comfort to progressives and ammunition for Republican attack ads.
“California is like your cool cousin that comes for the holidays who is intriguing and glamorous, but who might not fit in with the family year-round,” said Elizabeth Ashford, a veteran Democratic strategist who worked for former Govs. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Harris when she was the state’s attorney general.
Newsom, in particular, is quick to boast about California being home to the world’s fourth-largest economy, a billion-dollar agricultural industry and economic and cultural powerhouses in Hollywood and the Silicon Valley. Critics, Trump chief among them, paint the state as a dystopian hellhole — littered with homeless encampments and lawlessness, and plagued by high taxes and an even higher cost of living.
Only two Californians have been elected president, Republicans Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. But that was generations ago, and Harris and Newsom are considering bids to end the decades-long drought in 2028. Both seized the moment by courting party leaders and activists during the three-day winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee that ended Saturday.
Harris, speaking to committee members and guests Friday, said the party’s victories in state elections across the nation in November reflect voters’ agitation about the impacts of Trump’s policies, notably affordability and healthcare costs. But she argued that “both parties have failed to hold the public’s trust.”
“So as we plan for what comes after this administration, we cannot afford to be nostalgic for what was, in fact, a flawed status quo, and a system that failed so many of you,” said Harris, who was criticized after her presidential campaign for not focusing enough on kitchen table issues, including the increasing financial strains faced by Americans.
While Harris, who ruled out running for governor earlier this year, did not address whether she would make another bid for the White House in 2028, she argued that the party needed to be introspective about its future.
“We need to answer the question, what comes next for our party and our democracy, and in so doing, we must be honest that for so many, the American dream has become more of a myth than a reality,” she said.
Many of the party leaders who spoke at the gathering focused on California’s possible role in determining control of Congress after voters in November approved Proposition 50, a rare mid-decade redrawing of congressional districts in an effort to boost the number of Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation in the 2026 election.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass rallied the crowd by reminding them that Democrats took back the U.S. House of Representatives during Trump’s first term and predicted the state would be critical in next year’s midterm elections.
Mayor Karen Bass speaks at the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting at the InterContinental Hotel in downtown Los Angeles on Friday.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Newsom, who championed Proposition 50, basked in that victory when he strode through the hotel’s corridors at the DNC meeting the day before, stopping every few feet to talk to committee members, shake their hands and take selfies.
“There’s just a sense of optimism here,” Newsom said.
Democratic candidates in New Jersey and Virginia also won races by a significant margin last month which, party leaders say, were all telltale signs of growing voter dissatisfaction with Trump and Washington’s Republican leadership.
“The party, more broadly, got their sea legs back, and they’re winning,” Newsom said. “And winning solves a lot of problems.”
Louisiana committee member Katie Darling teared up as she watched fellow Democrats flock to Newsom.
“He really is trying to bring people together during a very difficult time,” said Darling, who grew up in Sacramento in a Republican household. “He gets a lot of pushback for talking to and working with Republicans, but when he does that, I see him talking to my mom and dad who I love, who I vehemently disagree with politically. … I do think that we need to talk to each other to move the country forward.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks as his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom looks on during an election night gathering at the California Democratic Party headquarters on November 04, 2025 in Sacramento.
(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
Darling said she listens to Newsom’s podcast, where his choice of guests, including the late Charlie Kirk, and his comments on the show that transgender athletes taking part in women’s sports is “deeply unfair” have drawn outrage from some on the left.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, another potential 2028 presidential candidate whose family has historically supported Newsom, was also reportedly on site Thursday, holding closed-door meetings. And former Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, also a possible White House contender, was in Los Angeles on Thursday, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show and holding meetings.
Corrin Rankin, chair of the California Republican Party, cast the DNC meetings in L.A. as “anti-Trump sessions” and pointed to the homeless encampments on Skid Row, just blocks from where committee members gathered.
“We need accountability and solutions that actually get people off the streets, make communities safer and life more affordable,” Rankin said.
Elected officials from across the nation are drawn to California because of its wellspring of wealthy political donors. The state was the largest source of contributions to the campaign committees of Trump and Harris during the 2024 presidential contest, contributing nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, according to the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization Open Secrets, which tracks electoral finances.
While the DNC gathering focused mostly on mundane internal business, the gathering of party leaders attracted liberal groups seeking to raise money and draw attention to their causes.
Actor Jane Fonda and comedian Nikki Glaser headlined an event aimed at increasing the minimum wage at the Three Clubs cocktail bar in Hollywood. California already has among the highest minimum wages in the nation; one of the organizers of the event is campaigning to increase the rate to $30 per hour in some California counties.
“The affordability crisis is pushing millions of Americans to the edge, and no democracy can survive when people who work full time cannot afford basic necessities,” Fonda said prior to the event. “Raising wages is one of the most powerful ways to give families stability and hope.”
But California’s liberal policies have been viewed as a liability for Democrats elsewhere, where issues such as transgender rights and providing healthcare for undocumented immigrants have not been warmly received by some blue-collar workers who once formed the party’s base.
Trump capitalized on that disconnect in the closing months of the 2024 presidential contest, when his campaign aired ads that highlighted Harris’ support of transgender rights, including taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgery for inmates.
“Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” the commercial stated. The ad aired more than 30,000 times in swing states in the fall, notably during football games and NASCAR races.
“Kamala had 99 problems. California wasn’t one of them,” said John Podesta, a veteran Democratic strategist who served a senior advisor to former President Biden, counselor to former President Obama and White House chief of staff for former President Clinton.
He disputed the argument that California, whether through its policies or candidates, will impact Democrats’ chances, arguing there’s a broader disconnect between the party and its voters.
“This sense that Democrats lost touch with the middle class and the poor in favor of the cultural elite is a real problem,” said Podesta. “My shorthand is, we used to be the party of the factory floor, and now we’re the party of the faculty lounge. That’s not a California problem. It’s an elitist problem.”
While Podesta isn’t backing anyone yet in the 2028 presidential contest, he praised Newsom for his efforts to not only buck Trump but the “leftist extremists” in the Democratic party.
The narrative of Californians being out of touch with many Americans has been exacerbated this year during the state’s battles with the Trump administration over immigration, climate change, water and artificial intelligence policy. But Newsom and committee members argued that the state has been at the vanguard of where the nation will eventually head.
“I am very proud of California. It’s a state that’s not just about growth, it’s about inclusion,” the governor said, before ticking off a list of California initiatives, including low-priced insulin and higher minimum wages. “So much of the policy that’s coming out of the state of California promotes not just promise, but policy direction that I think is really important for the party.”
Reporting from Sacramento — In a Time Life book titled “The Indians of California,” there’s a passage that probably isn’t taught to schoolchildren studying our not-so-golden state’s checkered history.
It reads:
“One old Pomo woman looked on in horror as two whites impaled a little girl on the bayonets of their guns and tossed the body in the water. [She] saw a little boy and a mother and baby put to death in similar fashion. One man was strung up by a noose and a large fire built under him….”
That happened on what soon became known as Bloody Island at Clear Lake, 90 miles north of San Francisco.
There’s a historical marker that reads: “On this island in 1850, U.S. soldiers nearly annihilated all its inhabitants for the murder of two white men. Doubt exists of these Indians’ guilt.”
There’s no doubt two white ranchers were killed by a handful of Indians. The ranchers had enslaved, tortured and starved the Indians. They were planning to force-march the “surplus” — those unfit or unneeded for ranch labor — to Sutter’s Fort in the Sacramento Valley 100 miles away. A final straw was when the ranchers captured the chief’s young wife and forced her to live with them.
After the chief and some buddies killed the two ranchers, the U.S. Army retaliated by massacring much of the Pomo tribe. The commander wrote his general: “The number killed I confidently report at not less than 60, and doubt little that it extended to 100 and upwards.”
Technically, state government wasn’t the assassin at Clear Lake. The U.S. Cavalry was. California was still four months short of official statehood. But the carnage unquestionably reflected the prevailing California political sentiment.
The next January, California’s first elected governor, Peter Burnett, declared in his State of the State address: “That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected.”
In the 1850s, the Legislature appropriated $1.29 million to wage militia war against California’s Native Americans. Some of that money was used to pay bounties for body parts — 25 cents per scalp, up to $5 for a whole head.
California’s indigenous population exceeded 200,000 in 1800, but plummeted to around 15,000 by 1900.
“It’s called a genocide,” Gavin Newsom said at a ceremony with Native American leaders along the Sacramento River in 103-degree heat. “That’s what it was. A genocide. No other way to describe it and that’s the way it needs to be described in the history books….
“You have to call things what they are…. We allowed vigilantes. We organized militias. We funded them. We reimbursed them and we got the federal government to make us whole. That was genocide….
“And so,” he concluded, “I’m here to say the following: I’m sorry on behalf of the state of California.”
OK, but so what? Why now? And what good does it do?
For starters, why not?
It does mean that California’s government finally acknowledges that a significant number of the state’s early elected officials and pioneer citizens were a bunch of greedy, bigoted thugs. It’s healthy to admit that.
We’ve never been reluctant to demand that Southern whites face up to their shameful history of enslaving, segregating and lynching African Americans.
“It’s definitely overdue,” Newsom senior advisor Daniel Zingale replied when I asked what prompted the governor’s apology. “It’s the kind of thing he wanted to address early on. It’s on his list of core values.”
Another thing it does: It makes the Democratic governor lots of wealthy friends who run tribal casinos and have vaults full of potential campaign donations when he eventually runs for president.
Actually, I figure, most California voters partially apologized in 1998 and 2000 by allowing tribes to build Vegas-style casinos on their rural reservations. There are now 64 casinos operated by 62 tribes.
No one seems to know — at least publicly — how much in winnings they pull in each year. But it’s in the many billions of dollars.
The governor’s apology apparently means a lot personally to Native American leaders.
“It’s instrumental,” says Assemblyman James Ramos (D-Highland), the first California Indian elected to the Legislature. “Sometimes local elected officials don’t really believe what happened to us. It’s just ‘our story.’ So having the leader of the state of California come out and give an apology, it’s instrumental.”
Ramos, who grew up on the San Manuel Indian Reservation, talks about the “Battle of 1866.” White militia forces swarmed into the San Bernardino Mountains to clear out the Indians. His great-great-grandfather, Ramos says, saved the last 30 tribal members and founded the San Manuel reservation in the valley.
“There’s the same story of genocide over gold and logging throughout the state,” he says. “Tribes were pretty much annihilated.”
Now California has the largest American Indian population in the country — around 723,000.
This state, of course, also has a bigoted, greedy history toward Asians. For generations, Japanese immigrants were barred from owning property. The Chinese couldn’t legally migrate here at all.
But California Indians were the only ones systematically killed with Sacramento’s financial support.
If Newsom is ever elected president, he can offer the nation’s apology for all the atrocities inflicted on Native Americans by European invaders — including at the Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee and Bloody Island.
