The “Affordability” Trap: Why Progressives Need to Talk About Design, Not Just Prices

To build a lasting movement, we must stop talking about the economy like a force of nature and start treating it like a blueprint.

As progressives look for ways to counter the appeal of nativist populism, a single word has emerged as a touchstone in political and policy pitches: “affordability.” From policy white papers to grassroots organizing slogans, the left is betting that this six-syllable word will be the bridge to a broader, winning coalition.

On the surface, it makes sense. People are indeed struggling to make the rent, get the groceries, and pay the bills. But as a sociolinguist, I see “affordability” as a rhetorical dead end. It is an abstract, technocratic term — a clunky linguistic barrier that describes a result while obscuring the cause. By leaning on it, we risk sounding like we are merely offering “handouts” to help people weather an economic storm, rather than offering a vision of an economy that truly works for people.

(tumsasedgars/iStock)

The Problem with the Six-Syllable Fix

Research from the FrameWorks Institute shows that though people are deeply concerned about their bank accounts, they don’t talk in terms of “affordability.” They think in terms of prices. They talk about things being expensive. As former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) famously noted when critiquing how elite discourse misses the mark:

“Voters don’t sit around their kitchen tables and talk about ‘affordability metrics.’ They talk about being cheated. They talk about how the system is set up to squeeze them dry... We don’t need to ‘make life affordable’; we need to stop the price-gouging by design.”

Brown is identifying the “missing middle” in the progressive message: agency. As a noun, the term “affordability” is passive—a state of being.

Trapped in the Family Budget

Perhaps most dangerously, the “affordability” frame traps the conversation within the narrow realm of the family budget rather than the broad realm of public policy. When we frame the issue this way, we inadvertently trigger a “consumer” mindset rather than a “citizen” mindset. In our research on housing, for example, we found that when we asked Americans about “affordable housing,” the solutions they generated were almost entirely individual: Work harder to make more money so you can move to a better neighborhood, or If you can’t afford it here, you should move somewhere cheaper. By focusing on the family’s ability to pay, we lead people away from structural solutions — like zoning reform or rent stabilization — and toward a narrative of personal grit and relocation.

The Economy Is Designed

The public has an appetite for the more structural narrative. For the first time in a generation, there is a burgeoning public realization that the old myth of the “natural” free market — a self-regulating ecosystem that no one controls — is a fiction. People are beginning to understand that the economy is designed by deliberate policy choices.

This is a massive opening for a movement grounded in structural change. But just because there’s an opening doesn’t mean that all ways of approaching it will get through. As my colleague Nat Kendall-Taylor has explained, it’s not enough to say the system is rigged; we have to say how it’s rigged and who did the rigging.

When we talk about “unrigging the design,” we move from the defensive to the offensive. We aren’t just offering “relief” (which implies a temporary fix for a permanent condition); we are offering a redesign.

A Toolkit for Unrigging the Narrative

To move the needle, we need to shift our language from the abstract to the concrete. Here is how the movement can “unrig” its message:

• Move from naming the issue (“affordability”) to explaining the cause and solutions (“economy as designed”). Don’t just say things are expensive; explain that they are expensive because the rules were written to favor monopolies and massive corporations over families and workers.

• Prepare for the predictable “handout” frame: When the opposition calls an affordability measure a “government handout,” don’t defend the recipients as “needy” or “deserving.” Redefine it as a rebalancing of the scales — a way to return power to the people from whom it was designed to be taken.

  Beyond the Policy Paper

If progressives want to build a coalition that transcends the current moment, we have to stop sounding like coupon-cutters and start acting like architects.

Making life “affordable” is a modest, bureaucratic goal. Designing a society where the system works for ordinary people by default? That is a vision worth fighting for. By replacing a passive, six-syllable label for prices with the active language of “unrigging” the design, we can show that we aren’t just complaining about weather — we’re ready to rewrite the blueprint.

Julie Sweetland, PhD, is a sociolinguist and a senior advisor at the FrameWorks Institute.

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