Sara Parker is a single mom in Houston, Texas, who works for an energy workers union. The money, which once allowed her to fill a grocery cart, now only covers the bare necessities. The price of a tank of gas has also nearly doubled for her. “We hear that inflation is low, but we don’t even have time to question it because we’re too busy trying to survive,” Parker told Slate. “To me, it’s the worst it’s ever been.”

More than 1,000 miles away in Columbus, Ohio, Saeed Nassef runs a local homebuilding business. The price of construction materials has gone up rapidly in the last few years, and the costs of electricity, heating, and gas have doubled. Nassef says small businesses and their owners in Ohio are suffering greatly from this inflation pressure, including his neighbor, who does flooring for a living and is struggling to keep up with rising costs. “When the costs of his supplies go up suddenly, he can’t immediately adjust prices,” Nassef told Slate. “His customers just won’t be able to pay. So he absorbs the costs himself. Last week, he told me he had no more money in the bank.”

Parker’s and Nassef’s experiences aren’t unique. Americans all over the country are feeling squeezed everywhere from the pump to the grocery store to housing. Despite this, the U.S. government insists that inflation is stabilized and that it’s continuing to come down steadily since its post-pandemic peak. At the end of March, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell appeared to be optimistic about current inflation levels.

The delta between the lived experiences of people like Parker and Nassef—struggling to carry on with life as normal—and the assertion from the federal government that inflation is in a reasonable place is a result of how inflation is calculated. What inflation means to low- and middle-income households and what it means to policymakers are two completely different things. Outside of monetary policy, inflation impacts mortgage rates for homeowners, eligibility for school lunch subsidies, Social Security disbursements, and more. It determines policy, benefits, and economic behavior. But because that number is built on a series of methodological judgment calls, they end up shaping the very economic reality they’re supposed to measure.

Put another way: The way the government tracks inflation can actually construct it.