Update
What It Will Take to Make Life Affordable
02. 11. 2026
Affordability is the word of the year, showing up everywhere from national headlines to governors’ State of the State addresses to TikTok feeds, as people are feeling just how unaffordable life has become.
More than half of Americans say the high cost of living is putting financial strain on their families, and roughly two-thirds say it’s actively holding them back from reaching their financial goals. Case in point: utility prices have risen by 13% in the last year, grocery prices remain well above pre-pandemic levels with staples like beef and coffee up over 16%, and there isn’t a single state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a two-bedroom apartment without spending over a third of their income. Across the board, costs have gone up while incomes have come down—a stark contrast to the promises made by the Trump administration to deliver economic prosperity for families.
How to make life affordable is one of the central questions of this moment. As policymakers, organizers, and advocates grapple with how to respond to a crisis decades in the making, we see an opportunity to coalesce these efforts and deploy ESP’s organizing, campaigning, narrative, and policy expertise to move the debate and deliver for millions of Americans.
Last month, we launched the Affordability Campaigns Collaborative, a new coalition working group bringing together national and state organizations spanning issue areas, including Groundwork Collaborative, League of Conservation Voters, SOMOS, and dozens more, to share campaign, communication, and narrative strategies to advance ideas that can both deliver short-term relief and tackle the structural flaws in our economy that got us here. Our kickoff call brought together more than 60 organizers and strategists nationwide, emphasizing the urgency of this moment and an appetite for increased coordination across the field.
We’ve already seen what this kind of coordinated affordability campaigning can achieve. Last month, 17 Congressional Republicans broke with their leadership to join Congressional Democrats in extending Affordable Care Act tax credits, a result that would have seemed impossible months ago. Yet, Economic Security Project Action (ESPA), alongside partners like Protect Our Care and communities across the country, helped make healthcare affordability front and center—elevating the stakes through national media, including a New York Times op-ed, and working with creators to tell stories that resonated with younger, online audiences. It’s a clear example of how aligned narrative, organizing, and campaigning can move both public debate and political outcomes.
A critical part of our affordability campaign is reaching a younger, anxious audience who are experiencing economic pain most acutely. That includes launching our second Economic Futures Cohort, our creator fellowship focused on translating the affordability crisis into stories that resonate with the young and anxious, an audience consuming news on social media from trusted messengers, alongside a healthcare-specific cohort of creators directly affected by ACA cuts. That cohort includes food creators, culture critics, nurses, advocates, and creators in the self-care and climate spaces who can directly speak to how healthcare pressures show up in their daily lives.
We’re also reaching this new audience through POP! Economy, our social media brand that uses humor, pop culture, and storytelling to help people make sense of the economy. Next week marks POP!’s one year anniversary and in that first year we’ve grown to 50,000 followers and reached over 25 million views on content that breaks down affordability—from recaps of popular shows like The Pitt examining our broken healthcare system, to explaining how Buy Now, Pay Later platforms like Klarna and Affirm are fueling debt, to carousel explainers that dive into how inequality is threatening our democracy. We’re also expanding POP! to new social media platforms like Threads and Bluesky, and investing in paid education campaigns that take our stickiest affordability creative and share that across more platforms, engaging our target audiences multiple times.
Alongside our campaign and narrative work, we’re also building the policy solutions needed to match the scale of the problem. We’re continuing our Road to Affordability Tour, with upcoming stops in Los Angeles and Maine, to hear directly from people how affordability pressures show up in their lives and how it varies from community to community. In the months ahead, we’ll apply our Affordability Framework—which we released last fall—to specific sectors like housing, healthcare, and food insecurity, sharing policies that directly address the squeeze millions of Americans feel. The policy briefs will be developed in close partnership with a new cast of fellows, who will serve as experts and validators, bringing subject-matter expertise and credibility across key affordability sectors.
Mark Your Calendars!
Beyond our affordability work, we’re also bringing our community together this month for an event we hope you can join!
Will AI usher in a new era of prosperity and leisure or a future of unemployment and inequality? This is the question at the heart of an upcoming Johns Hopkins Forum debate between ESP co-founder Chris Hughes and former Presidential candidate Andrew Yang. With AI now capable of writing code, diagnosing diseases, and generating art, the future of work hangs in the balance. Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan will moderate. Registration is first-come, first-served, so reserve your spot today!
When: Wednesday, February 25, 6:00 PM
Where: Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center
Reserve your spot here!
ICYMI: Our Picks
From junk fees to Fed independence to how affordability is impacting Gen Z, here are a few pieces of content that captured our interest this month:
- NYC joins growing list of communities banning junk fees
Creator Brian Baez (and Economic Futures Cohort alumn!) breaks down how junk fees are costing families an average of $3,200 a year. But leaders across the country are taking notice and pushing back. “California banned junk fees, Minnesota banned junk fees, Massachusetts, Colorado, Illinois are all cracking down because Americans are tired of corporations treating us like ATMs.” - The enormous stakes of Donald Trump’s fight with Jerome Powell
In a piece for Vox, ESP’s Mike Konczal explains why President Trump’s escalating attacks on the Federal Reserve, including criminal indictments against its chair Jerome Powell, are about far more than interest rates or building renovations. “The confrontation is the dangerous but inevitable result of President Trump’s new vision of executive power, one in which the president directly exercises control over economic policymaking without any independent institutions to slow him down.” - We asked 300 people about healthcare costs. The numbers are shocking.
In a New York Times piece, Americans from all walks of life shared how they are impacted by ACA tax credits expiring. One of them is Lynn, a Pennsylvania home caregiver without benefits, whose story we’ve helped lift up. “I make too much money to get any medical assistance, but don’t make quite enough to get what I need. I have medical debt all the time.” - America’s War Chest in Waiting
America now has a $200 billion investment bank that deploys public capital abroad. In an article for Foreign Policy, ESP co-founder Chris Hughes explains how it can shape global markets and why, without strong guardrails, the Trump administration could misuse it to benefit private actors and weaken institutions. “The abduction of a foreign head of state could be considered an act of war. In Washington, it became an opening bid.” - How the affordability crisis is impacting Gen Z
Creator Michael Mezzatesta examines why the economy feels stacked against young people—from a weak job market and rising costs to the growing anxiety about AI and the future of work. “The American dream feels impossible for young people right now, and we’re not helping them by telling them they are lazy or bad at managing money.” - Why Affordability and the Vibecession Are Real Economic Problems
On his latest Substack, ESP’s Mike Konczal explains why affordability concerns are major economic problems, not just bad vibes. “When the prices of necessities rise faster than everything else, when housing becomes mechanically harder to access, when planning gets more cognitively costly, and when borrowing is more expensive, welfare can fall even if average real incomes recover.”