In Nairobi’s Eastlands, the morning market does not start with announcements or headlines. It starts with calculation.<\/p>\n
Mary Wanjiku, a jobless single mother of three,\u00a0 stands in front of a stall she has known for years, quietly doing the math in her head before she even asks the price.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year I could buy everything I needed,\u201d she said. \u201cNow I just pick what I can\u2019t leave out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her words reflect what a new TIFA survey is showing at a national level \u2014 that for most households, life has become harder since the 2022 elections.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Ask people what has changed, and the answers come quickly \u2014 food, transport, rent, electricity.<\/p>\n
In Kayole, a boda boda rider puts it simply.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuel goes up, everything follows,\u201d he said. \u201cBut income stays the same. So you adjust your life downwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
That idea of \u201cadjusting downwards\u201d comes up again and again in conversations. Not growth. Not progress. Adjustment.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 a quiet but serious indicator of how tight household budgets have become.<\/p>\n
There is also something less measurable in the survey \u2014 a kind of national fatigue.<\/p>\n
About three out of four Kenyans say the country is heading in the wrong direction. It is not just anger. It is exhaustion.<\/p>\n
In Mathare, a shopkeeper described it without hesitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are tired of hoping,\u201d he said. \u201cYou just focus on today.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sentiment runs through the findings \u2014 declining trust in leadership, frustration with rising prices, and a sense that promises of improvement have not reached ordinary households.<\/p>\n
Economists point to fuel prices, inflation, and taxes as the main drivers of the pressure.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Recent inflation figures show the strain clearly, with rising costs of fuel and transport pushing up the overall cost of living.<\/p>\n
Government officials have also acknowledged that debt repayments and recurrent spending are limiting how much the state can do to ease household pressure.<\/p>\n
But on the ground, that explanation does not change much.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter why prices go up,\u201d Mary said. \u201cThey just go up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even as politicians prepare for 2027, many people say their daily struggles have nothing to do with campaigns or alliances.<\/p>\n
In fact, politics often feels like something happening elsewhere.<\/p>\n
A boda boda rider laughed when asked about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoliticians are talking about 2027,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are talking about lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n
That gap between political debate and daily survival is widening \u2014 and it shows up in the TIFA survey\u2019s findings of declining trust in institutions and growing dissatisfaction with leadership.<\/p>\n
Despite everything, life continues. Markets open. Matatus move. Small businesses try the next day again.<\/p>\n
But it is a different kind of movement now \u2014 slower, more careful, more deliberate.<\/p>\n
Mary leaves the market with a small bag. Not empty, but not full either.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just make it work,\u201d she said, stepping into the morning crowd. \u201cThere is no other choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
And in that sentence lies what the survey numbers try to describe \u2014 a country not standing still, but constantly adjusting, carefully, to a cost of living that keeps rising faster than everything else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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