A posting this month by Flathead Valley Giving Table founder Danni Gormley caught my eye:
“Used to be the only people in need of the food banks were people that had nothing, but now many middle class families with full time jobs are unable to afford groceries …”
You read that right, the middle class.
The latest 2025-26 data shows a three-person “middle class household” having annual earnings of between $52,000 and $124,000, although the social tier varies by state and locality.
For a middle class family in the Flathead, for instance, earnings could range anywhere from $41,000 to $100,000 or more.
And if our families with decent salaries are finding it difficult to put food on the table, imagine how this valley’s working class is faring.
Which, by the way, is one stated reason Montana’s fertility rate has declined — and precipitously so — in recent years, among the steepest drops in the country.
A mere 11,071 babies bounced into Montana in 2023, an 18 percent decrease compared to the previous decade. And there’s no swarm of storks on the horizon.
In fact, Uncle Sam’s new figures put Montana’s 2025 fertility rate at a mere 52 births per 1,000 women of child-bearing age, while the state’s teenage (15-19 years) birth rate was only 11 babies per 1,000 females.
Another factor giving Montana couples pause when contemplating larger families is housing costs. And for good reason.
Montana has now reached the unenviable position of being among the top five states in the country (along with Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, and Idaho) with the largest “affordability gaps” for households earning between $75,000 to $100,000.
This translates to mean, as extraordinary as it sounds, that Montana’s aforementioned middle class families can afford fewer than 12 percent of real estate listings.
Let’s repeat that: Montanans bringing in as much as $100,000 can swing only the lowest cluster of the housing market.
For those who do manage to put roofs over their heads there’s affiliated budget busters, like homeowners insurance. And now those couples with poor credit histories are paying considerably more for their policies, in part because without spare cash in their pockets they’re filing more claims.
There is some welcome news in recent days, as the U.S. Senate passed the largest bipartisan housing (improvement) bill in decades, which would boost everything from financing opportunities for homebuyers, to restricting investors from gobbling up much-needed housing.
The bottom line is this: the cost of living is only getting more costly — housing, insurance, taxes, mortgages, rent, utilities, transportation, health care, child care, and yes sustenance, its cost these first two months of 2026 rising 2.4 percent.
In 2024 — pre-tariff and pre-Iranian war, in other words — the Bureau of Economic Analysis put annual non-restaurant food costs for the typical Montanan at $4,960, or $415 per month (precisely the amount I pay, excluding dog food and bones).
Inflation, though, is on the rise again and grocery costs are projected to increase substantially in 2026: beef prices rising an additional 5.5 percent; coffee and other (non-alcoholic) beverages up 5.2 percent; and sugar and sweets like chocolate increasing 6.7 percent.
As Danni Gormley of the Giving Table (check them out on Facebook, as they are continuing to expand services throughout the Flathead) explained it to me, the overall high cost of living eventually “trickles down” to where sustenance itself can become prohibitive.
Might I propose renaming this country’s social classes, as defined by income and wealth, to simply the “haves” and “have nots.”
After all, as one puzzled consumer observed: “Not sure if everything is expensive or I’m just poor.”
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.