Retiree Madonna Raffini recently shopped for groceries for herself and her 96-year-old mother.
“I went into Walmart, of all places, and looked at the meat — little teeny steaks. Two of them, less than a quarter-inch thick, $18.99. That’s outrageous,” said the former Wells Fargo employee. “We can’t afford to eat beef anymore, or chicken for that matter. So that’s myNo. 1 beef” in the 2024 election.
Audrey Dempsey, a semiretired small-business owner, and her husband still work at the photography and travel company they founded three decades ago. They are the only workers remaining at the firm that employed nine people before the pandemic decimated their business.
“It went in the toilet, without a doubt. We didn’t know how we were going to pay the bills,” Dempsey said, leaning on a cane because of the physical toll of working the prior night. Despite the nation’s economic recovery, she said many of their former clients have not returned. “Social Security helps us to pay the bills, but we still have to work.”