To see how badly Americans have been burned by inflation for over three and a half years, consider what it’s like for those in Nevada. Skyrocketing prices have resulted in such a severe cost-of-living crisis that a family of four in the Desert State now needs an annual income of $231,000 to live comfortably.

Americans’ savings and incomes have been consumed by ubiquitous price increases, the result of an inflationary wildfire set by politicians in Washington, DC. That fire continues to this day because politicians keep feeding it with fuel in the form of runaway government spending.

While elitist economic and political charlatans claim the economy is rebounding, Nevada’s experience reflects that of the country as a whole, with inflation putting the American dream out of reach for countless families.

Nevadans have felt the purchasing power of their hard-earned money erode under the Biden-Harris administration. Annual price increases there, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), peaked at 16 percent, nearly double the national average. This has burned a hole in the pockets of Nevadans who are struggling with record-high prices for food, insurance, and their rents and mortgages.

These stratospheric prices have one source: reckless government spending fueled by money printing. Roughly 25% of the money supply was created in just the last four years to fuel the inflationary spending spree that began in 2021 and continues today.

It is the federal debt burden that has come crashing down on families and crushing their household budget. One of the most painful expenses for Nevadans today is housing.

The Heritage Foundation’s Personal Inflation Calculator, which uses official government data, shows the average Mountain-region homeowner saw monthly mortgage costs inflate by 27.9% since the start of 2021. Housing costs rose from $2,287 in 2021 to $2,925 today, costing Nevadans nearly $7,700 annually.

Silver-State households are spending an additional $1,590 per month (a 23% increase) on the necessities of housing, groceries, gas, and energy, costing them nearly $20,000 annually. To put that into perspective, that’s the cost of buying their teenager a new Toyota Corolla — every year.

It’s lower- and middle-class workers that bear the brunt of high prices. Meanwhile, the politicians that propagate spending and inflation are relatively insulated from this financial devastation since their incomes and wealth both tend to rise alongside consumer prices.

High-income politicians have more room in their budgets to absorb price increases. For example, Vice President Kamala Harris’s reported income was $450,000 in 2023 while the average household income in Nevada was $55,490 in the same year.

If the average individual spends 30% of their income on housing expenses, a Nevadan has less than $40,000 to spend on groceries, car payments, electricity, and gas, while Harris has over $315,000.

The impacts of inflation are less burdensome to those with a bigger pie.

Harris deserves considerable blame for today’s higher prices because, as vice president, she cast the tie-breaking vote on trillions of dollars in additional government spending, including for the deceptively named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

She recently commented the IRA has “already delivered for American families,” and yet prices keep rising, even according to her administration’s data. Perhaps a better name for the IRA is the Inflation Reacceleration Act.

The plain truth is that when the federal budget grows, the family budget shrinks. Profligate spending by big-government politicians means Washington gets fat while Nevadans go hungry.

The answer isn’t for Americans to buy fewer groceries or downsize their apartments, but for government to go on a diet.

Until that happens and the reckless spending in Washington is reined in, families will continue being forced to sacrifice their lifestyle and comfort for a government that maxes out a credit card in your name and contributes to your financial pain.

That’s the consequence of having an elite D.C.-based class that views itself as more deserving of your hard-earned money than you.

In less than four short years, government runaway federal spending has eroded about one-fifth of the dollar’s value. More of the same policies will produce more of the same results — in Nevada and nationwide.

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E.J. Antoni, a public finance economist, is the Richard F. Aster fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where Nicole Huyer is a member of the Young Leaders Program.

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