I didn’t experience the U.S. economy as an abstract idea. I experienced it as a morning routine, a receipt in my hand, a pause before swiping my card, and a quiet calculation that ran in the background of every decision I made. The economy wasn’t something happening “out there.” It was something happening to me, and through me, and around me—woven into conversations, commutes, screens, and silences.
I felt it first when mornings became louder with numbers. Not stock tickers exactly, but prices. Gas station signs glowed like warning lights. Coffee shops adjusted menus with small apologetic notes taped near the register. Rent emails arrived with careful language, pretending they weren’t ultimatums. The economy announced itself gently at first, then more insistently, until it became impossible to ignore.
Walking through my neighborhood, I could read the economy in storefronts. Some windows were dark, papered over with “For Lease” signs that had been bleached pale by the sun. Others were bright and buzzing—short-staffed but busy, thriving on demand even as they struggled to meet it. The contradiction was everywhere. Prosperity and precarity shared the same block, sometimes the same building.
I remember standing in line at a grocery store, listening to the soft percussion of items being scanned. Each beep felt heavier than it used to. People ahead of me watched the screen closely, as if the total might change if they stared hard enough. When it did jump, there was always a small exhale, a shrug, a muttered joke. Humor became our coping mechanism, our way of acknowledging that something fundamental had shifted without fully naming it.
I felt it first when mornings became louder with numbers. Not stock tickers exactly, but prices. Gas station signs glowed like warning lights. Coffee shops adjusted menus with small apologetic notes taped near the register. Rent emails arrived with careful language, pretending they weren’t ultimatums. The economy announced itself gently at first, then more insistently, until it became impossible to ignore.
10s
Walking through my neighborhood, I could read the economy in storefronts. Some windows were dark, papered over with “For Lease” signs that had been bleached pale by the sun. Others were bright and buzzing—short-staffed but busy, thriving on demand even as they struggled to meet it. The contradiction was everywhere. Prosperity and precarity shared the same block, sometimes the same building.
I remember standing in line at a grocery store, listening to the soft percussion of items being scanned. Each beep felt heavier than it used to. People ahead of me watched the screen closely, as if the total might change if they stared hard enough. When it did jump, there was always a small exhale, a shrug, a muttered joke. Humor became our coping mechanism, our way of acknowledging that something fundamental had shifted without fully naming it.