Copyright Vox.com
The buzziest political word of the year is “affordability” — it’s the mantra that carried the insurgent progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani to victory in New York City’s mayoral primary, and that Democrats across the country have since raced to claim as their own. “Affordability is the central issue, the central reason to be a Democrat,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren declared in August. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has similarly placed “affordability” at the center of his state housing reforms and his administration’s plan to manufacture generic insulin pens. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison launched his reelection bid this week under the banner of “Afford your life.” Few candidates or elected officials are willing to acknowledge what many economists say quietly: that prices tend to be “sticky,” and that absent a major economic slowdown, costs are unlikely to fall much from where they are today. Still, Democratic strategists who worried that the party under Joe Biden had for too long ignored cost-of-living issues and the growing frustration around inflation have been happy to see “affordability” take center stage. That the cry is being led by a candidate endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America has even given the term leftist validation — despite the fact that a decade ago “affordability“ stood as the vague, squishy descriptor socialists blamed for watering down the goal of universal health care with the Affordable Care Act. But when it comes to the explanation for today’s affordability crisis, the party has found itself embroiled in seemingly endless factional debates — with each camp insisting their diagnosis is the primary one. Is the crisis because, as the Abundance theorists argue, we’re not building enough? Or is it, as some populists allege, due to corporate greed and Wall Street recklessness? Or because we’ve shirked on antitrust enforcement, allowing monopolies to take over and artificially raise prices? Or because, as progressives argued in the 2010s, unions were decimated and too much was left to the market? Rather than acknowledge that multiple factors might be at play, each faction has largely dug in around its preferred explanation. One attempt to unify these debates comes from the Economic Security Project (ESP), a progressive organization focused on direct cash support and the broader social safety net. It offers a new analysis of affordability in hopes that a comprehensive framework might lead to clearer political solutions, and perhaps more harmonious political consensus. Though Mike Konczal, one of the report’s co-authors, emphasized in an interview that their work represents an “honest assessment“ of structural problems and not a political compromise, it’s clear that the analysis aims to offer a more constructive path forward than the in-fighting so many have grown used to. Broken markets, broken incomes The analysis divides the affordability crisis into two categories: problems with markets and problems with incomes. Markets, ESP argues, fail in three main ways First, “gatekeepers” constrain supply — for example, drug companies stacking up patents to stop competition, hospitals merging to reduce choices, and NIMBYs blocking housing. Second, “fragmented markets” falter when the lack of customers makes services unprofitable, leaving rural areas without hospitals or broadband. Third, “manipulated signals” obscure true costs through features like junk fees and algorithmic pricing, which prevent consumers from comparison shopping and cost them thousands a year. On the income side, ESP argues that three forces make essentials unaffordable even when markets function well. “Life-cycle mismatches” mean costs peak when earnings are low — child care arrives early in careers when paychecks are smaller, while health care expenses surge in retirement. Inequality keeps incomes too low for many families: 43 percent of families can’t cover basic necessities, and since 1979, wages have risen only 29 percent while productivity climbed 83 percent. Lastly, economic shocks like recessions leave lasting scars; for example, workers displaced in downturns can lose up to three years of lifetime earnings. The framework covers most of the leading theories and treats all six causes as equally important, declining to rank any theory against another. It builds on a different framework published in September by Jared Bernstein, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under Biden, and Neale Mahoney, a Stanford University economist. The Bernstein-Mahoney report laid out more specific policy recommendations than ESP, though ESP says it plans to issue those types of proposals beginning next year. Both analyses arrive as Democrats sort through competing ideas for understanding why costs are so high. The most prominent this year has been Abundance, popularized by Vox co-founder Ezra Klein and journalist Derek Thompson, which focuses on supply constraints: zoning laws blocking housing, permitting delays slowing infrastructure, regulatory barriers limiting competition. Their diagnosis is that government-imposed bottlenecks are preventing us from building enough of what we need. ESP incorporates those arguments but argues it’s incomplete. In the case of child care, for example, even if you removed every supply constraint (like licensing requirements that limit the number of providers or zoning rules that restrict home-based daycares) families would still struggle to afford care early in their careers. Building more housing, similarly, is not enough to protect families when job losses or inflation erode real incomes. As proof that these various approaches aren’t really in tension, ESP points to California. In the past two years, state lawmakers passed major YIMBY upzoning laws while also enacting anti-monopoly measures, including a ban on algorithmic rent-setting software like RealPage and reforms targeting prescription-drug middlemen who mark up prices. The same Democratic legislators — progressives like state Sen. Scott Wiener and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks — championed both sets of policies. “At the state level, at the personnel level, we often don’t see these conflicts as much as you might suspect,” Konczal said. The framework tries to show that addressing broken markets in one area doesn’t preclude addressing broken incomes in another. Or, put differently, the conflicts that often dominate online debates may be more about interpersonal feuds and factional positioning than actual policy trade-offs. The future of affordability Konczal acknowledged that because the framework doesn’t prioritize among causes, “people will obviously have disagreements on which is more important,“ calling that “a very useful disagreement to have.” By not making those judgments itself, the framework lets each camp find validation without forcing trade-offs about which problems deserve the most urgent action. If political battles are ultimately about resource allocation and legislative priorities, what’s gained by a unifying framework that sidesteps the hardest choices? This raises an obvious question: If political battles are ultimately about resource allocation and legislative priorities, what’s gained by a unifying framework that sidesteps the hardest choices? Some, like Matt Bruenig, founder of the left-wing People’s Policy Project, think the ESP framework gets the logic generally right but badly misweights the causes. “As far as magnitude goes, income distribution dwarfs everything else,” he told Vox. Broken incomes bear most of the blame for lack of affordability, he argues, while theories like monopolistic pricing get more attention than the evidence warrants. The weighting question connects to a deeper issue. When should markets be fixed and when should they be replaced? This is arguably the key question for affordability and one that the various factions have not yet squarely confronted. Should health care be made more affordable through competition and transparency, or guaranteed through universal coverage? Should housing costs come down through supply increases, or should housing be partially decommodified through social housing? Ironically, “affordability” once meant something very different to progressives. A decade ago, Democrats fought over whether the government should guarantee services or simply make them cheaper. The Bernie Sanders wing pushed for universality — Medicare-for-all, free college, housing as a right — while moderates framed goals around access: less costly insurance, debt-free college, homeownership incentives. “Affordable“ became the compromise word, often dismissed by the left as a disappointing cop-out — a promise of market participation instead of universal provision. Now you have a progressive organization embracing “affordability” while explicitly invoking Social Security-style guarantees for life-cycle costs. Does one need to pick? Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign showed how “affordability” can cover both approaches. She ran on an “opportunity economy“ centered on market-based solutions: small business tax credits, housing supply increases, cutting red tape. But she also proposed banning price gouging on groceries, capping prescription drug costs, and expanding the Child Tax Credit. “Affordability” let her do both without having to explain when markets needed fixing versus when they needed bypassing. That’s either sophisticated politicking or strategic ambiguity. The optimistic read is that the left has evolved beyond the false binary of guarantees versus opportunity. You can fix markets and provide universal goods — they’re complementary, not contradictory. Recognizing that markets can work for some things if we fix them, while other things need decommodification, is arguably progress. The pessimistic read is that “affordability” is doing too much work, covering for a lack of clarity about priorities. Without a theory of when to use which approach, you get a “do everything” framework that risks defaulting to market-based solutions because they’re easier and more politically palatable, even when the right answer might be to fight for universal programs. When I asked the report authors whether they had a theory for when something should be guaranteed versus made more affordable, they demurred. “It depends,” Konzcal said, saying that “most economic problems involve both” sides. He pointed to public options as a balanced approach, but offered little clarity for when to deploy them. “Markets can innovate and scale, while public options can anchor supply, set benchmarks, and ensure universal access,” he said. Their sector-specific reports planned for 2026 will be a clearer test of where this framework ultimately goes. That’s where we’ll see if this can tackle the thorniest questions: What should we stop trying to make people afford at all?
