Every poll tells us that affordability is the major concern facing hardworking Americans. Many are increasingly angry as they watch the cost of goods and services spike — from groceries to housing to medical care. At the same time, wages and incomes fail to keep up.
What’s behind this cost-of-living crunch? And what will our leaders do about it?
There are two sides to affordability: how much things cost, and how many resources people have to buy them. Both are a problem.
First, many Americans rightly believe that the price of basic needs has gotten out of control. Inadequate public investment means higher out-of-pocket costs for everything from child and health care to higher education. Corporate monopolies and financial speculation in industries ranging from housing to meat production to retirement savings have made things more expensive. And now across-the-board tariffs put in place by the Trump administration are raising costs further.
At the same time, wages for most workers have not kept up with growth in the economy since the 1970s. Wage growth comes from how much power workers have to bargain with their employers. And as policies have intentionally weakened unions and other forms of worker leverage, wages have fallen behind.
Thankfully, there are actions that can be taken now at the state level to address the problem of affordability. As KyPolicy outlines in a new report, “Building a Kentucky Workers Can Afford,” there are dozens of state policies that would grow worker power and family incomes while addressing the costs of basic goods and services.
For example, the state could repeal harmful laws undermining unions (like so-called right-to-work), expand collective bargaining rights and restore prevailing wage and minimum wage laws so there are more living wage jobs. Kentucky could also offer two years of tuition-free public higher education, and fund programs that help young people enter apprenticeships for good union employment.
The state could make historic one-time and annual investments in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to vastly expand the supply of houses and apartments. Kentucky can reinvest in public schools, helping kids succeed in life and families address child mental health and food costs while also giving teachers a real, much-needed raise.
The legislature could also create a Resiliency Fund to make infrastructure investments that can withstand extreme weather and spiking energy costs, creating good construction jobs in the process. That effort could include employing vulnerable young adults in a Kentucky Colonel Corps where they do one year of living wage public service after high school.
And the state could support families, including by enacting a child tax credit allowance that lifts 20% of kids out of poverty; providing paid family leave, universal preschool and affordable child care; and creating more options to make health insurance affordable using the state’s purchasing and regulatory power to crack down on corporate profiteering. Kentucky could also join 20 states that help put a secure retirement in reach by creating a state-managed retirement option for employees of all businesses and expand public investment in high-quality home care as our population ages.
Many of the ideas in the report build on successes in Kentucky’s past or policies that are proven to work in other states. And we can pay for this agenda from its economic benefits and savings and by balancing the tax code so that those at the top chip in for the investments that benefit us all. The richest 5% of Kentuckians are now pocketing $3.4 billion more a year because of state and federal tax cuts over the last decade. A Settle Up Tax on those at the top could easily fund the ideas described above.
Affordability will be the political word of the year in 2026. Will it have real actions behind it?
This column ran in the Kentucky Lantern on December 3.
