Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Max It's a summer Friday so we pubbed a little early. Happy weekend! For the past week, much of the discourse in Washington has centered on a technocratic debate over what constitutes a recession and whether Fed Chairman JEROME POWELL raised interest rates by too many or too few basis points. It's a discussion that's almost entirely foreign to vast swaths of the country, who aren't just lost in the esoteric jargon but literally don't have the time to follow. RAE LACURSIA is among them. She's a 52-year-old single mom and a full-time nurse who lives outside Chicago with her 25-year-old son. And over the last week, she and I have talked regularly about the state of the economy, how it has impacted her life, and how the arguments playing out in Washington D.C. are being absorbed, if at all, outside of the capital. Rae is not a singular reflection of the country at large. No one person is. But her story rings familiar to many: A life upended by the pandemic, a sense of relief as it faded, followed by despair when inflation began to bite. She had been working as an ER nurse until the end of 2020, when she decided to leave her job. "It just burnt me out," she told me, "putting in extra hours and watching people die." She found work again a half year later: three days a week at a hospital, pulling 12 hour shifts. She makes about $75,000 a year. But increasingly, it has been a struggle to get by. Her son is taking classes to be a screenwriter. The money he makes working at a cafe goes towards tuition and savings for a move out to California. Her parents are both in their 80s. And as the child living closest to them, Rae takes on the majority of the caretaking role. After years of avoiding the doctor, she went for a check-up recently, only to discover she had diabetes, hypothyroidism and hypertension. The medications she needs were only partially covered by her insurance. The rent on the apartment where Rae lives has been stable. But even then, she has scrambled to make the payments and occasionally asked for extra time. Gas costs more. And grocery shopping has turned into an art form — a demonstration of the deal-finding craft. "I've become a super shopper, coupons galore," is how she put it, noting that during this Thursday's shopping trip, she reduced her bill by $61. "We have to do it. We have to eat." The first time Rae and I spoke was the day after the Fed announced a 75 basis points hike on interest rates. An avid MSNBC watcher, Rae had heard the news. But it didn't register with her. She had just come off a 12 hour shift. There were too many other things to worry about. She told me that her salary technically made her middle class. "But I don't feel like that at all," she added. "I know it's not politically correct, but I feel like white trash a lot of times." We talked again on Thursday, shortly after it was announced that the economy had contracted by 0.9 percent in the second quarter. She wasn't surprised. "I don't feel like I'm growing, economically," she said. When we talked again the next day, she relayed that she was going to make her next rent payment and had checked the balance in her checking account. There would be $200 left once the check cleared. "We just made it," she said. "But we are one thing away from not being okay." Despite living on the cusp of being not okay, Rae tries to muster some optimism. It was worse in 2008, she noted, when the markets entirely collapsed and jobs were disappearing. A committed Democrat, she believes JOE BIDEN when he says the country isn't in a recession and that the economy is transitioning to a more stable place. Politically, she won't waver. Other issues, like guns and abortion rights, would keep her in the party's tent. At the same time, there was a strain and sadness in her voice that she didn't bother to hide. She was "spinning in circles." And it was increasingly difficult to see when it would stop. For Rae, the week's big economic news wasn't measured in basis points, or the employment cost index, or the GDP. It was in the cost of food, the bills to pay, and the dreams that she knew she would have to defer. "I have goals," she told me. "I want to go to Italy before I die. It was going to be my 50th birthday treat to myself but I turned 50 in the pandemic so I didn't go anywhere. And then I wanted to pay my charge card down. So I recalculated it and I was going to do it when I was 55. Then, with an unexpected charge, I said I will do it when I'm 56. And then, I saw interest rates were raised, so I'm gonna do it now when I'm 57. I'm still hopeful though. I can't lose hope." MESSAGE US — Are you ALEXANDRIA PHILLIPS, communications director for Surgeon General Dr. VIVEK MURTHY? We want to hear from you! And we'll keep you anonymous if you'd like. Or if you think we missed something in today's edition, let us know and we may include it tomorrow. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com .
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