Chuck Martens, a 77-year-old Omaha retiree, trades yardwork and odd chores around his apartment complex for rent credits just to make his monthly payment work. His apartment near downtown Omaha costs more than $1,200 a month, while his only income — Social Security — comes to just over $1,600. It's the kind of math playing out across the Midwest, where rising rent, grocery bills and child care costs are pushing voters to rank affordability among their top concerns heading into the midterms.
About 17% of Midwest households reported trouble paying their rent or mortgage in the past year, according to KCUR, which drew on Pew Research Center data as part of reporting from the Midwest Newsroom, a partnership that includes Iowa Public Radio, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR. The same data found that roughly one quarter of Midwest households said they could not pay all of their monthly bills in full. Martens's situation reflects a broader regional squeeze: Nebraska's median monthly rent has climbed from $859 in 2019 to $1,102 now, according to Nebraska Public Media, an increase of nearly 29%.
Rent and Housing Dominate the Complaints
In an April questionnaire the Midwest Newsroom and its partners distributed across Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska — described as not a scientific poll or survey — 50 of 61 Nebraska respondents listed rent and housing among their biggest financial pressure points, per the same account. Reporters interviewed people between April and September, according to author Holly Edgell's reporting for KCUR.
Nationally, one-bedroom rental prices have risen 40% since 2021, though Nebraska rents still sit about 33% below the national average, the Nebraska Public Media report notes. Catherine Harvey, the Omaha-based senior policy program manager for the Urban League, said earnings simply aren't keeping pace. “People feel squeezed and unseen,” Harvey said, per Nebraska Public Media. Affordable housing availability is an important voting issue, the outlet reported.
Families Are Moving for Cheaper Housing
Some households are relocating entirely. Ryan and Brittany Arthur, ages 41 and 39, moved with their two children from Portland, Oregon, to Kansas City, Missouri, in June after deciding the math no longer worked where they lived. “The housing market was just unreachable in Portland, especially in combination with childcare costs,” the couple told KCUR. Portland house prices average more than $520,000, while the Arthurs found an affordable home in a Kansas City neighborhood they wanted — though they told the outlet that daycare costs remained high and Missouri's grocery sales tax, which Oregon does not have, caught them off guard.
Missouri gained roughly 56,000 residents through domestic migration between 2020 and 2025, the station reported, and the broader Midwest added about 16,000 residents through domestic migration in 2025 after losing more than 500,000 people to other states earlier in the decade. Average Midwest house prices climbed from about $330,000 in 2020 to more than $430,000 in the first quarter of 2026, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data cited by KCUR. Rent still varies by state: as of late September, average rents ranged from about $1,226 to $1,265 in Iowa up to $1,336 to $1,380 in Nebraska, per the outlet's reporting.
Groceries, Gas and Health Premiums Add Up
Food costs are squeezing budgets too. Linda Rufus, a 67-year-old Iowa retiree, said food prices are extremely high and that she's struggling to balance expenses, switching to lower-cost proteins like ground turkey instead of ground beef, she told KCUR. USDA data cited by the outlet shows overall food prices rose 3% from June 2025 to June 2026, and the station reported that about one in four working-age adults use credit cards to buy food and then struggle to repay the balance.
John Mabry, chief relationship officer with the Food Bank of Lincoln in east-central Nebraska, said he saw an increase in people using food banks in August, according to St. Louis Public Radio. About 16% of U.S. adults reported their household used a food pantry in 2025, and roughly one in five Americans told Pew they'd used a food bank this year, per that same report. Gas prices nationally have risen 33% — an average of $1.02 a gallon — since January 2025, while nominal earnings grew just 6% over the same period, according to the Urban Institute's American Affordability Tracker, which was last updated October 26. Monthly health insurance premiums rose 22% between 2025 and 2026, the tracker found, and residential electricity bills outpaced earnings in 31 states between June 2025 and June 2026, with customers paying about $5 more per month on average.
Child Care Costs Strain Working Families
Child care remains one of the sharpest pain points. Annual Midwest child care costs for one child range from $8,000 to $14,000, according to Child Care Aware of America figures cited by KCUR, and families with two young children now pay $6,600 more annually for child care than a decade ago, per the Urban Institute. Renters, meanwhile, pay $710 more per month for housing than they did in 2017, the tracker shows — costs that have climbed faster than earnings across the board.
Grace Englehart, 30, earned a master's degree in 2025. Liz Arnold, who is certified to care for up to 10 children in her Lincoln, Nebraska, home, represents the kind of in-home provider that federal policy touches directly — the child care subsidy formula has been unchanged since 2014, and experts say the subsidy program can disincentivize providers and shrink available child care slots, KCUR reported.
Voters Split on Who's to Blame
The financial strain is translating directly into political calculus. Scott Schindler, 57, a Republican from Clearwater, Nebraska, voted for Trump in 2024 and plans to vote Republican again in the midterms, even as he and his wife, 65-year-old Luann Schindler — a Democrat — say they're frustrated by rising costs tied to their shares in a family farm and a local newspaper, including inputs, insurance, property taxes, food and gas. Luann Schindler said that everything seems to be rising in cost and that most average, normal citizens in the area cannot afford things, according to KCUR.
Not everyone agrees on who's responsible. An Associated Press poll found about 65% of voters blame the Trump administration for cost-of-living problems, and polls generally show most voters pointing the same direction, KCUR reported. Taken together, the interviews paint a Midwest where the cost of living, not any single issue, is becoming the lens through which voters are weighing their choices this fall.
