Nate Cohn

But when talking about the electorate overall or middle class, let alone upper middle class people, those big ticket items like housing and education tend to prevail.

I think that's right.

I do think that there is a question about whether voters think any progress is being made.

Voters think that Donald Trump's policies have made things less affordable.

I can imagine that if Trump had made some progress on these issues or was seen as focused on these issues, that his political standing would be much better, even if there was still a very long way to go before the ordinary 28-year-old could buy a house like we imagine someone in 1970 could have bought.

But I think you're right that the problems that we're talking about, education, health care, housing, child care and so on, these are longstanding problems.

They're problems where costs have been going up even during periods of low inflation.

And it's unlikely that they'll be addressed in Donald Trump's presidency, even if he was focused on them.

Yeah.

And I would also point out they think he's made these problems worse.

So not only is he not doing enough to solve them, but they think he's making things more expensive, too.

And that adds up to something really big.

Sixty five percent of people said that a middle class life was out of reach for most people.

And more than three quarters say it's gotten harder to achieve that middle class life than a generation ago.

So making this problem worse is a really big deal.

It means putting what people ordinarily expect out of their life and out of the life of most Americans out of reach for them.

I think the thing that struck me most about it was that there was a really deep generational divide.

Young people were just much more concerned about affordability and the ability to achieve a middle-class life than older people.

Only 24% of our 18 to 29-year-old respondents said that they thought they could afford the life they thought they should be able to afford compared to 63% of people over age 65.

It's a big difference.