Life in America doesn't feel like life right now. It feels like triage.

People get up, commute, grind through work, juggle kids and side hustles, scroll through their phones in bed until their eyes burn, then do it again tomorrow. They are surviving, but they are not living.

The numbers explain why. The average American now carries around $100,000 in total consumer debt once you add mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and student loans, according to recent Experian data. Total household debt has reached a record $18.6 trillion, up more than $4 trillion since just before the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, new surveys suggest roughly seven in 10 Americans feel they are living paycheck to paycheck, up sharply from just a few years ago. When that many people are one layoff, one medical bill or one blown transmission away from disaster, you don't get a peaceful society.

You get a country permanently clenched.

A 2024 national study found that 84% of Americans experience financial stress, driven above all by the cost of food and housing, and the lack of savings. Another survey from Empower shows people now spend close to four hours a day thinking about money — for younger adults, that number is even higher. That isn't financial planning; it is mental captivity. You cannot dream big when your brain is stuck in an endless loop of, "How am I going to pay for this?"

The pressure doesn't stop at the wallet. Kaiser Family Foundation data show that roughly one in three adults reports symptoms of anxiety or depression. Federal health statistics estimate that more than one in five Americans lives with some form of mental illness. Among younger adults, the picture is worse still: KFF reports that about half of those aged 18 to 24 have anxiety or depression symptoms. That is a rising generation stepping into adulthood already exhausted.

Anger is the exhaust of all this pressure. People lash out at politicians, bosses, corporations or each other because they don't see any safe outlet for their fear. Social media monetizes that anger by keeping us outraged and glued to our screens. But beneath the daily fights over politics and culture is a simpler reality: Millions of Americans feel life is slipping out of their control.

Meanwhile, our spiritual foundations are eroding. On a typical weekend, only about three in 10 American adults now attend religious services, down from roughly 42% two decades ago. A majority seldom or never goes to church. Younger generations are the least connected to organized religion and are far more likely to say they have no religious affiliation at all. When people are stretched thin financially and emotionally, God becomes one more thing they "don't have time for."

Yet removing God and community from the picture has not made Americans calmer or happier. It has made them more isolated. People still worship — but they worship politics, celebrities or themselves. They chase meaning in consumerism, online tribes or the next outrage cycle, and they end up lonelier and more resentful. We have more comfort and entertainment than any society in history, and yet we are anxious, debt-burdened and spiritually malnourished.

So what do we do?

First, we need leaders willing to tell the truth about the cost-of-living crisis and the debt trap. Both parties helped build an economy that runs on easy credit while housing, health care and education spiral out of reach. A serious politics would prioritize productive work, stable families and broad-based ownership over financial speculation and permanent dependency. That means policies that reward saving rather than constant borrowing, encourage building and homeownership, and stop treating young Americans as nothing more than student loan collateral.

Second, we have to rebuild community on purpose. Policy can help — encouraging walkable neighborhoods, strengthening local institutions, and supporting family formation — but it cannot substitute for the choice to be rooted. That means neighbors who know each other, families that put phones down at dinner, and churches that focus less on partisan theater and more on caring for broken people. A society of isolated individuals staring at screens will always feel on edge, no matter what the GDP numbers say.

Third, we must treat the mental health crisis as both a medical and a moral challenge. Therapy and medication can be lifesaving, but they cannot manufacture purpose. People need responsibilities that matter, relationships that endure, and a vision of life that goes beyond consumption and self-expression. Politics can make it easier or harder to build that kind of life, but it cannot replace the hard work of commitment, forgiveness and self-discipline.

Finally, we have to stop sprinting away from God and then wondering why everything feels empty. The American experiment was never meant to function on material prosperity alone. It assumed a people who believed they were accountable to something higher than their appetites and their politics. If we abandon that, we should not be surprised when public life becomes vicious and private life becomes joyless.

Right now, too many Americans are white-knuckling their way through each month — nervous, numb and spiritually adrift. Changing course will require more than a new policy or a new president. It will require rebuilding the financial, social and spiritual foundations that make real life possible — and having the honesty to admit that our souls are just as overdrawn as our credit cards.

Armstrong Williams is manager/sole owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast owner of the year. To find out more about him and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Anthony Tran at Unsplash