Now comes the hard part: turning that optimism and energy into policy solutions that lower costs, steady family budgets, and make it possible for everyone to live a good life. We’re excited to see what comes next! ✨ 6/6

Candidates who met voters were they we at—whether that was at their doorstep in a one-on-one conversation or on their TikTok feed alongside their favorite creator—showing up with authenticity and a willingness to listen to the issues their communities face every day. 6/

Affordability looks different in every city and state. But last night’s results show that people want leaders who talked about the economy not in abstract terms, but through the price of rent, the cost of commuting to work, or the strain of a grocery bill. 5/

💡 With energy costs rising by nearly 20% in New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill pledged to freeze utility rates and hold corporations accountable for these price hikes that are squeezing working families. 4/

🌄 In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger focused on tackling rising healthcare, housing, and energy costs, especially in the wake of cuts to the federal government that have driven up costs for Virginia families. 3/

🏙️ In New York, Zohran Mamdani put forth bold, tangible ideas like public grocery stores and free, reliable public transit to make urban life for New Yorkers work. 2/

4/ 🗞️ Read letter to the editor responding to Natalie’s op-ed in The New York Times and scroll to learn more about people’s experiences: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/o...

3/ When healthcare becomes a luxury instead of a right, young people are forced to choose between paying double or going without. It doesn’t have to be this way.

2/ And it struck a chord with readers who responded with their own heart-wrenching stories of dealing with a broken, unaffordable healthcare system—and their fears about how much worse it could soon get.

9/9 Taken together, these forces explain why so many parts of the economy feel broken—and why understanding both is essential to designing solutions that can build real economic security for all families.

Read the Affordability Framework and share it with your networks. 👇

8/ Fixing one without the other will not solve America’s affordability problem.

Healthy markets mean little if incomes can’t keep up, and higher paychecks won’t stretch far in markets rigged to keep prices high.

7/ Our framework identifies two core drivers of today’s affordability crisis:


💥 Broken markets: System failures that drive costs up and keep basic out of reach.

💸 Broken incomes: Even if markets were fixed tomorrow, people’s paychecks still wouldn’t keep up with the high cost of living.

6/ The Affordability Framework zooms out to reveal the common drivers of unaffordability across markets and industries. It allows policymakers and advocates to better understand why life has become so expensive in the first place to more strategically assess and build solutions for how to fix it.

5/ Too often, conversations about why the economy isn’t working for most Americans happen in silos, divided by sector, school of thought, or partisan lines.

4/ It’s why:

🏠 A young adult with a steady job still can’t afford to live without roommates
👶 Parents find childcare so expensive that it’s cheaper for one of them to stay home
👵 Why a retiree needs a part-time job to keep up with the rising cost of living.

3/ Unaffordability is the missing link between how the economy performs on paper and people’s lived experience.

2/ By traditional standards, the economy looks strong, with steady growth, cooling inflation, and low unemployment.

But that doesn’t reflect what people are experiencing across the country. That disconnect isn’t imagined—it’s distinctive of the affordability crisis.