Eye-opening at the top of the Wall Street Journal’s April 11-12 edition was the headline “Inflation hits two-year high.”

Reporting that consumer prices jumped 3.3% in March from a year earlier, the largest increase in two years, the Journal said the April 10 inflation report from the U.S. Labor Department “was in line with the expectations of economists surveyed” by the newspaper “but the March reading was much hotter than February’s gain of 2.4%”

The Journal continued: “The report is the first to capture the impact of the Iran war on inflation.”

The Journal quoted Heather Long, chief economist of the Navy Federal Credit Union, who wrote in a note April 10 that “the war in Iran is now clear in the economic data and it’s a brutal picture.”

The “brutal picture” is front and center for working families and even singles who are dealing with the challenges of trying to adjust their budgets, not only to deal with much higher energy costs but also the continuing increases in costs for food and other needs.

Then there is the challenge facing senior citizens who depend on Social Security, as well as the other Americans living on fixed incomes involving whatever money sources make up their financial livelihood.

Later this year, will the financial experts who are charged with fairly examining this year’s inflation picture in order to compile a fair 2027 cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients really end up doing so, all considered? Or, will it be another year when the “take-home cash” of whatever Social Security increase is decided upon will be significantly reduced by a significant increase in the cost of Medicare Medical Insurance?

It’s only April but it is not too soon for seniors to be thinking about that and other inflation realities.

There is not one cost for individuals and families who are not retired and other, lower costs for seniors. Cash registers at supermarkets and other businesses ring up the same, no matter the age of the consumer.

Perhaps the only exceptions are some fast-food restaurants that commendably extend a senior citizen discount to those at or above a certain age.

Consider the following information from the April 11-12 Journal article:

– Energy prices increased by 12.5% from a year earlier. The increase in February of this year was just 0.5.%.

– The price of fuel oil increased 44.2%.

– Gasoline prices increased18.9%.

The Journal began another article in the April 11-12 edition with the observation that “Americans’ paychecks are falling into their gas tanks.”

Later in that other article, the Journal wrote that the steep increase in fuel costs has been especially acute for rank-and-file workers, including those in blue-collar industries.

“Adjusted for inflation,” the Journal reported, “their hourly earnings inched up only 0.1% in March from a year earlier, slipping below the growth rate for all workers.”

This being a midterm election year, look for efforts to be stepped up over the next several months for a fix-the-economy push leading up to the November general election. However, seniors will be wondering whether they will be forgotten amid that push.

The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, also released on April 10, reportedly fell to its lowest level on record — 47.6 — down almost 11% from the month before and well below April 2025.

For seniors and others, that and other sources measuring the nation’s mood and other realities are a must-watch for the rest of this 2026 midterm year.