[[link removed]]

OPINION: EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT AFFORDABILITY — AND MAKING THE
SAME MISTAKE  
[[link removed]]


 

Heidi Shierholz
November 29, 2025
MS NOW
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Focusing on just prices misses the bigger picture. _

Affordability depends on both prices and wages, Pixabay

 

Affordability – or the lack of it – is dominating the public
discourse. “Affordability, affordability, affordability:
Democrats’ new winning formula,” proclaims Politico
[[link removed]].
“Trump tries to seize ‘affordability’ message,” reports The
New York Times
[[link removed]].
Election results in New Jersey, Virginia, New York and elsewhere
showed that voters are responding to candidates who speak directly to
the cost of living.

Today’s affordability debate, however, focuses almost entirely on
prices, as if the only way to make life affordable is to make things
cheaper. But that approach misses the bigger picture. Affordability
depends on both prices _and wages_. The roots of today’s
affordability crisis actually lie not in recent price spikes, but in
the long-term suppression of workers’ pay
[[link removed]]. 

IF PAY FOR TYPICAL WORKERS HAD KEPT PACE WITH PRODUCTIVITY OVER THE
PAST 45 YEARS, THEIR PAYCHECKS TODAY WOULD BE ROUGHLY 40% LARGER.

For more than four decades, employers have been actively suppressing
the wages of working people, so that corporate managers and owners can
claim an ever-larger share of the income generated by what workers
produce. Government policies facilitated these efforts
[[link removed]].
Policymakers allowed labor standards such as the minimum wage to erode
(and reduced enforcement of the standards we do have), blocked
adequate protections for workers’ right to organize and promoted
macroeconomic policy that allowed unemployment to remain too high for
long periods, undermining workers’ leverage.

One way to see this shift is by comparing the growth in workers’ pay
to the growth in productivity, which measures how much income is
generated on average in an hour of work. If pay for typical workers
had kept pace with productivity over the past 45 years
[[link removed]],
their paychecks today would be roughly 40% larger. That wage shortfall
is what is really driving America’s affordability crisis – and
reversing it must be central to any serious affordability agenda. 

Policymakers who only look at prices and ignore paychecks are missing
a huge set of affordability policy levers. Stronger labor law, which
helps workers’ ability to unionize and bargain collectively
[[link removed]],
is affordability policy. A higher minimum wage
[[link removed]]
is affordability policy. Macroeconomic policy that keeps unemployment
low and protects workers’ bargaining power
[[link removed]]
is affordability policy. A durable social safety net
[[link removed]]
that keeps families from falling into poverty when they lose a job or
get sick is affordability policy. 

Affordability remains top concern of Americans – yet Trump is
focusing on Sen. Kelly
[[link removed]]November
25, 2025 / 10:09
These reforms are also incredibly popular. Unions, for example, are as
popular as they have been in decades
[[link removed]]
– with particularly strong support among younger people.  Americans
overwhelmingly back higher minimum wages
[[link removed]].
There is electoral gold to be mined by policymakers who show voters
that they are pursuing policies that will make life more affordable by
raising wages. 

That’s not to dismiss efforts on the price side of the affordability
equation. Antimonopoly policies can help keep large corporations from
inflating prices. Building affordable housing can help reduce housing
costs. Subsidies for – or public provision of – necessities such
as health care, child care and transportation can provide families a
crucial buffer. Those are all essential efforts.

AS LAWMAKERS GRAPPLE WITH THE COST OF LIVING, THEY NEED TO REMIND
AMERICANS – AGAIN AND AGAIN – THAT PAY IS A POLICY CHOICE.

But if policymakers promise they will lower prices enough to ensure
affordability for U.S. families, they are setting voters up for
disappointment. The vast majority of prices will never come down. We
live in a mostly capitalist economy where prices are set by millions
of private actors. Micromanaging them isn’t possible or even
desirable in most cases. 

What policy _can_ do is ensure that the labor market delivers rising
incomes: through better labor standards and collective bargaining
rights, through macroeconomic policy that helps ensure a full
employment economy and boosts workers’ leverage and through social
policies that fill the gaps the market leaves behind.  

Research consistently finds that voters blame inflation on government
policy but take personal responsibility for what happens to their
wages – good or bad. This perception is backwards, and especially so
in the post-pandemic recovery.
[[link removed]]
The inflation of the early 2020s was driven almost entirely by the
Covid-19 pandemic and global conflicts, not U.S. government policy,
and it receded as those shocks eased. By contrast, the rapid wage
growth during the same period was driven almost entirely by a
deliberate policy decision: using large-scale fiscal stimulus to
engineer a rapid recovery from the Covid-19 recession.  

As lawmakers grapple with the cost of living, they need to remind
Americans – again and again – that _pay is a policy choice_.
Making life more affordable means not just lowering prices where
possible and necessary, but raising wages. True affordability comes
when working people earn enough to cover the costs of living with
dignity and security. 

_Heidi Shierholz is president at the Economic Policy Institute and
former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor._

_Subscribe to __MS NOW_ [[link removed]]

* Affordability crisis
[[link removed]]
* inflation
[[link removed]]
* prices
[[link removed]]
* wages
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Bluesky [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]