4 Bills the Middle Class Should Expect To See Increase in 2025
Written by
Jordan Rosenfeld
Edited by
Molly Sullivan
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Overall costs of living are on everyone’s mind these days, as prices remain high despite inflation cooling down. Cooling inflation just means that prices rise less quickly, not that they stop rising.
Americans may hope that President Donald Trump’s second administration will bring costs down this year but it’s unlikely that many of them will.
Experts explained which bills they expect will increase for the middle class in 2025.
Utility Bills
Gas and energy prices fluctuate often, and 2025 will be no exception. In fact, the U.S. natural gas price forecast looks to be going up, according to Diversegy.
Leon Turkin,a mortgage broker, financial expert and CEO at Turkin Mortgage, warned that this will likely mean “an overall increase in the energies’ prices, especially electricity and gas.”
Factors contributing to the high cost of energy include geopolitical conflicts (such as Russia’s war with Ukraine) and interruptions in oil supply in the countries with the biggest natural supply of oil and gas, to name a few.
With the Trump administration rolling back Biden-era policies on green energy, pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Accord and more, attempts to move toward more stable renewable energy sources don’t appear to be a priority.
“Utilities, as regulated entities, generally change their rates to reflect changes in the cost of fuel, infrastructure investments, and maintenance. These, in addition to the inflationary pressures on labor and material costs, could mean higher bills for the consumer,” Turkin said.
Joe Camberato, CEO of NationalBusinessCapital.com, believes the Trump administration’s move to deregulate the energy sector and increase oil and gas production in the U.S. will “ease energy prices up a bit” but it’s unclear how quickly those costs could come down.
On the other hand, climate experts fear that the negative effects of turning away from green energy will have expensive consequences, such as disaster impacts on people’s homes and livelihoods.
Communications Bills
You can probably expect your communications bills to rise, too, such as phone and internet services, Turkin said. “In fact, many have already noted that prices from Netflix and all other related streaming facilities are up. Many relate this to the increased cost of producing content amidst tough competition in the entertainment industry,” he said.
Telecommunication companies may be raising their prices as they continue to invest in improving 5G infrastructure and enhancing their networks, as well, he said.
Camberato believes that companies may have pushed prices as far as they can without risking customers leaving and believes things should stabilize in the near future.
Groceries
Though many people voted in the presidential election hoping to bring down their grocery costs, they may not see any relief this year. Turkin said that “inflationary pressures [such as] labor costs and supply chain disruptions are likely to continue to push food prices higher.”
One example is the extremely high price of eggs lately, driven mostly by outbreaks of avian flu and other production disruptions.
General Goods and Services
There is still the question of how Trump’s tariffs, if he imposes them on countries like China and Mexico, will affect consumer prices of just about everything, from food, electronics, household items and so on.
Camberato said “tariffs are the wild card.” He did recommend, however, “If you’re thinking about making bigger purchases, like furniture, electronics or anything imported, you might want to lock that in sooner rather than later as those items get shipped from overseas.”
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