Everyday Americans like you – the hard-working families, the retirees on a fixed income, the young adults just making your way, veterans, college students, or anyone who is not ultra-wealthy – suffer for the unjustified benefit of the millionaires and billionaires.

Since 2009 the federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25/hour – about $15,000 a year which is not a living wage.¹ Meanwhile, food prices have steadily climbed. When this wage was set in 2009, a Big Mac sandwich cost $3.50;² today, it’s nearly $6, but the real stress appears on grocery bills. Prices for coffee, beef, and other staples are rising rapidly due to Trump’s tariffs, anti-immigration policies that target agricultural workers, and his refusal to address climate change. ³ By allowing Trump to: set tariffs through emotional tweets, raid immigrant residences and places of work with no due process, and deny climate change, Americans are whip-sawed from one inflated cost to another. He also seems incapable of understanding that the tariffs affect US consumers the worst.⁴

It’s not just food – the costs of housing⁵, electricity ⁶, and healthcare⁷ keep rising far faster than Americans can pay for them. In Pennsylvania’s 13th District, more than 110,000 constituents rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits⁸, 160,000 constituents rely on Medicaid⁹, 13,000 constituents rely on Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits¹⁰, and over 46% of our public school students qualify for the Free and Reduced Lunch program.¹¹ 

Yet our own US Representative, multi-millionaire John Joyce, voted twice for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act which cuts Medicaid from 17,000 recipients and SNAP from 6,000 recipients in our district, and ends subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) recipients.¹² During this federal shutdown, Joyce’s cruelty means the loss of SNAP benefits to 43 million Americans, with only a vague promise of partial USDA relief.¹³ With average SNAP benefits of $211 a month, children and seniors may only see $105 within the next month. 

And all of this hardship funds tax breaks for billionaires. In other words, Trump and Joyce serve the ultra-wealthy, not us, the Everyday Americans.¹⁴

Moreover, the Trump administration, with silent condonement from John Joyce, ended collective bargaining ability of federal workers who try to secure better wages and fair working conditions for themselves.¹⁵

In other news, American farmers who rely on federal funds and programs are suffering. In PA-13, over 25 farms have been denied the average $68k per farm from the Local Food Assistance Program (LFPA) that compensates farmers for the crop overyields they donate to food pantries.¹⁶ This denial is due to the halting of federal funds and programs that Trump conducted without Congressional consent, yet our wealthy member of Congress, John Joyce, says nothing against this crime, nor does he fight for US soybean farmers who have lost marketshare this year. Even though Trump is working on a deal with China, the rising costs of pesticides due to Trump’s continued tariffs still hurt these farmers. ¹⁷

Economic volatility threatens job growth and affordable housing. To ensure stable communities, we must expand property tax/rent rebates and double funding caps for housing affordability and neighborhood assistance programs.

Part of the reason that Joyce ignores Everyday Americans is because he is sponsored by big money. Since the 2010 Citizens United decision, members of Congress have received unlimited funding from corporate interests and “dark” money from unknown donors through political action committees (PAC’s). This big money tilts elections in favor of those who serve the ultra-wealthy and not us Everyday Americans.¹⁸

Notes:

1. The Federal Minimum Wage is Officially a Poverty Wage ↩︎
2. Big Mac Costs through the Years ↩︎
3. Reasons for Inflation of Coffee, Beef, Bananas, and Oranges ↩︎
4. President Trump Misunderstands the Mechanism of Tariffs ↩︎
5. Housing Cost Inflation ↩︎
6. Electricity Cost Inflation ↩︎
7. Soaring Healthcare Costs ↩︎
8. SNAP Statistics per Congressional Districts ↩︎
9. Medicaid Recipients per County, PA ↩︎
10. WIC Recipients per County, PA ↩︎
11. Greater Johnstown School District Free and Reduced Lunch program recipient percentage ↩︎
12. How the Big Beautiful Bill Act Removes Healthcare from Americans in need ↩︎
13. Government Shutdown Leads to Fewer SNAP benefits ↩︎
14. Trump’s Bill Steals from the Poor to Give to the Rich ↩︎
15. Trump Admin Ended Collective Bargaining for 1 Million Federal Workers ↩︎
16. Cancelled LFPA May Return, but Only Proposal Now ↩︎
17. Farmers Struggle With Tariffs Despite China Deal to Buy Soybeans ↩︎
18. How Citizens United Adversely Affects US ↩︎