In Nairobi’s Eastlands, the morning market does not start with announcements or headlines. It starts with calculation.
Mary Wanjiku, a jobless single mother of three, stands in front of a stall she has known for years, quietly doing the math in her head before she even asks the price.
“Last year I could buy everything I needed,” she said. “Now I just pick what I can’t leave out.”
Her words reflect what a new TIFA survey is showing at a national level — that for most households, life has become harder since the 2022 elections.
The poll, conducted in May 2026 across all 47 counties, finds that about 64 per cent of Kenyans say their household situation has worsened, while only a small share say things have improved.
But the numbers, as heavy as they are, feel familiar to many people. They match what is happening in kitchens, matatus, and small shops across the country.
Everything feels expensive at once
Ask people what has changed, and the answers come quickly — food, transport, rent, electricity.
In Kayole, a boda boda rider puts it simply.
“Fuel goes up, everything follows,” he said. “But income stays the same. So you adjust your life downwards.”
That idea of “adjusting downwards” comes up again and again in conversations. Not growth. Not progress. Adjustment.
In the TIFA findings, nearly half of the respondents say the cost of living is the biggest problem facing the country. Many also say they experience hunger at least sometimes — a quiet but serious indicator of how tight household budgets have become.
A country that feels tired
There is also something less measurable in the survey — a kind of national fatigue.
About three out of four Kenyans say the country is heading in the wrong direction. It is not just anger. It is exhaustion.
In Mathare, a shopkeeper described it without hesitation.
“People are tired of hoping,” he said. “You just focus on today.”
That sentiment runs through the findings — declining trust in leadership, frustration with rising prices, and a sense that promises of improvement have not reached ordinary households.
The pressure points are familiar
Economists point to fuel prices, inflation, and taxes as the main drivers of the pressure.
When fuel rises, transport becomes expensive. When transport rises, food becomes expensive. By the time it reaches the table, the original price increase has multiplied.
Recent inflation figures show the strain clearly, with rising costs of fuel and transport pushing up the overall cost of living.
Government officials have also acknowledged that debt repayments and recurrent spending are limiting how much the state can do to ease household pressure.
But on the ground, that explanation does not change much.
“It doesn’t matter why prices go up,” Mary said. “They just go up.”
Politics feels far away
Even as politicians prepare for 2027, many people say their daily struggles have nothing to do with campaigns or alliances.
In fact, politics often feels like something happening elsewhere.
A boda boda rider laughed when asked about it.
“Politicians are talking about 2027,” he said. “We are talking about lunch.”
That gap between political debate and daily survival is widening — and it shows up in the TIFA survey’s findings of declining trust in institutions and growing dissatisfaction with leadership.
Still moving, but carefully
Despite everything, life continues. Markets open. Matatus move. Small businesses try the next day again.
But it is a different kind of movement now — slower, more careful, more deliberate.
Mary leaves the market with a small bag. Not empty, but not full either.
“You just make it work,” she said, stepping into the morning crowd. “There is no other choice.”
And in that sentence lies what the survey numbers try to describe — a country not standing still, but constantly adjusting, carefully, to a cost of living that keeps rising faster than everything else.
