According to a recent online post by CNBC, “Affordability is a buzzword right now.” That certainly seems to be the case, but what does affordable mean? Dictionaries define affordable as “able to be afforded” or “having a cost that is not too high”—but those definitions are so ambiguous they have little meaning. Despite its current popularity, affordability seems clearly to be a conundrum.
Marked cost-of-living increases in the past year have sparked widespread discussion about affordability. In campaigning for the 2024 election, the current POTUS promised that “starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down and we will make America affordable again.”
In a September 2024 speech, Trump promised to
get gasoline “below 2 dollars a gallon,” and said this would bring down “the
price of everything from electricity rates to groceries, airfares, and housing
costs.” Obviously, that hasn’t happened, so what the president says about affordability
and what a majority of the voters perceive is a distinct part of the affordability
conundrum.
In 2025, gas prices did go down by about 30
cents a gallon (from an average of $3.10 to about $2.80). That has made
gasoline more affordable, but $2.80 is a long way from below $2.00—and that decrease
is mostly due to lower crude oil prices and weaker global demand rather than
due to something Trump did or didn’t do. No president has much influence on
gas prices.
As you know, the Olympic Winter Games are now in progress, but the drawing for inexpensive tickets for the 2028 Summer
Olympics in Los Angeles went on sale last month. In fact, I decided to write
this blog article when I saw an announcement saying, “Affordable tickets for the 2028 Los
Angeles Olympics start at $28.”
But,
I thought, what about travel and lodging expenses? What is the use of buying an
affordable ticket if you don’t have enough money for traveling to LA or staying
in a hotel there? According to AI, it is estimated that round-trip flights from
Kansas City (where I live) to LA will likely be $400 to $800, and a two-night
stay in a LA hotel about the same—a minimum of $1,200 for one person!
So,
the “affordable” ticket ends up not seeming so affordable after all.
What
about “affordable housing”? There
is much in the news media about that issue currently. What is termed affordable
housing typically limits costs to 30% of household income to avoid burdening
limited means. Obviously, what is “affordable” for middle- and top-income
households is certainly not affordable for low-income families.
“Affordable groceries” also depends on one’s income.
From what I have found, low-income households spend almost 33% of their
after-tax income on food. According to 2023 USDA data, those in the lowest
income quintile have an average after-tax income of $16,171, and the average
spent annually for food was $5,278.
That percentage of income far exceeds the
10-15% typical for median earners and especially the slightly more than 8% for
high earners. And my guess is that the median- and certainly the high-earners
eat far better (more delicious and more nutritious) food than low-income
people. So, affordability relates to far more than just how much something
costs.
The
most reasonable approach to affordability seems to be with those who advocate democratic socialism,
such as Senator Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Mayor Zohran
Mamdani in New York City (the same three I also mentioned at the end of my Nov. 10 blog post).
Mayor
Mamdani has repeatedly said that affordability is the central crisis facing New
Yorkers, and he frames most major policy proposals around lowering the cost of
living for working‑class residents. His public statements emphasize rent
relief, affordable housing construction, cheaper essentials, and investments
that help families stay in the city.
Mamdani
links affordability to daily essentials, proposing city‑owned grocery stores to
reduce food prices; fast, fare‑free buses to cut transportation costs; no‑cost
childcare and support for newborns. He argues these reduce the financial burden
on families and help them remain in the city. This, he says, can and will be
done by levying higher taxes on those who are wealthy.
So, as we think about the affordability conundrum, let’s consider what that means for all our fellow citizens and not just for us in the middle class. And let’s continue to oppose the present administration’s policies that have shifted so much money from the lower classes to the billionaires who are profiting “bigly” from their benefactor in the White House.
