Can you believe it: There are only two months left in 2026. I don’t know about you, but this year has felt like it’s gone by in the blink of an eye. We survived an election season, the first half of the academic year is beginning to wind down, winter will soon be here in full force, and the holiday season will soon take over. I feel like I still have so much more I want to accomplish before the year ends.
I know many Americans, and New Yorkers in particular, are feeling financially strained this season. It seems like the price of everything has gone up. I go to the grocery store and spend $100 for two bags of groceries. I don’t have a car, but I have felt the effects of rising gas prices in airline tickets this season. Financial experts have said that flights, food, gas, and basic essentials are roughly 30% more expensive now than they were this time last year. We need to right this ship, and soon.
Sadly, many Americans are finding themselves in debt just trying to make ends meet. People are using credit cards for necessities and essentials, not shoes and restaurants. Fees and high interest rates on all types of credit cards further trap millions of Americans in a debt cycle that seems never-ending. My friend and colleague Dr. Fred Wherry, a professor of sociology at Princeton University and director of the Dignity and Debt Network, a “global network of scholars, advocates, and financial organizations working to understand and empower the linkages between lending and human values,” also examines the rise of mass debt, which now rivals mass incarceration in scale, and exposes the predatory tactics of debt collectors and the court system.
So many people feel shame about their debt. That shame can have substantive and severe mental and physical effects on an individual. These negative byproducts of debt can also take a real toll on not just an individual person, but their entire family as well.
Hard choices may have to be made as Thanksgiving and the winter holidays approach. The desire to gather with friends and family increases during this season, but the price of food, gas, and flights may curtail or even derail certain family traditions and travel plans. If so, it is incumbent on us to create new family traditions, check in on our friends who may not be traveling this season, scale down if we must, but never forget that the real wealth comes from being together and creating new memories, not the fancy trimmings on the table.
As always, if you are in a position to lighten the load for someone else, let’s do so. Food pantries and religious institutions are experiencing unprecedented levels of need. If we are able, we can and should contribute to help our neighbors this season.
Christina Greer, Ph.D., is a professor at Fordham University; author; senior policy fellow at Brooklyn Org; and co-host of the podcast FAQ-NYC.
