CBS News poll finds Americans feel inflation's impact on living standards, opportunities

Inflation's impact may even go beyond the immediate pressure on Americans' pocketbooks, to a larger sense that it is stifling opportunity in America and the deeper sense that the nation's economic troubles of recent years have been, as a whole, tougher than others it has faced in generations. 

So, even amid stronger jobs reports and economists' talk of "soft landings," people say they still pay more attention to their own experiences than to macroeconomic measures — and an overwhelming number say their incomes aren't keeping pace.

More people today say their standard of living is worse, not better, than their parents' was, and it's age group encompassing a lot of millennials and Gen-Xers, currently in their prime working years, who are especially apt to think so — a sentiment that runs counter to the traditional notion of the American Dream.