The cooling rate is still as high as the highest inflation rate during the entire period of the 2010s through 2019. And it's on top of the prior years which are a cumulative of around 20% over 3 years (typically that number is close to 6%). Whether people like the politics of it or not, all the insane spending proposals of Harris will cause even greater deficit spending which translates into even higher inflation if she wins.
To make matters worse, that 2.9% is after the Fed already raised rates as high as it can safely go, and now it has to lower rates to stave off rising unemployment (the numbers of which were wildly misreported to make the economy sound better than it is). Inflation will very likely rise in response. At what point are we all tired of being told to pretend our lived experience is just not accurate and that everything is rosy. It isn't.
We have entirely cut out dining out, coffee shop visits, gym memberships, etc to keep our budget in the black. We did so to keep our kids in activities and to allow us to keep our family vacations, etc. And my wife and I make decent combined income. We just had a much better and more easygoing budget in 2019, even though our wages have gone up some.