The Cost of Living.
It should have been the focus of the State of the Union and the Democratic response. It wasn’t.
Because if we’re going to have an honest conversation about politics in America, it needs to start with the cost of living.
Not as a slogan. Not as a talking point. Not as a vague promise to “bring prices down.” But as the central issue shaping everyday life.
This is what Donald Trump was elected to fix. It’s what Democrats say they want to fix. It’s what nearly every campaign speech eventually circles back to. Immigration, race, culture wars — those issues matter and they influence politics — but nothing affects more Americans more directly than whether they can afford to live.
So let’s simplify the phrase.
When Americans say “the cost of living,” what do they actually mean?
They mean “the bills”.
In everyday American language, “I can’t afford to live” means your rent or mortgage, your electricity, your water, your phone, your internet, your car payment, your car insurance, your gas, your repairs, and your groceries. These aren’t luxuries. They’re not optional.
You can’t call the electric company and say, “I love your service, but I’m skipping this month.”
You can’t tell your mortgage lender you’ll catch up next quarter.
You can’t drive without insurance.
You can’t function in modern America without a phone or internet access.
If you choose not to pay these bills, you don’t save money — you create bigger problems later.
That’s what people mean when they talk about struggling.
When I got my first job out of college, I quickly realized something that many Americans already know: one paycheck was gone before I ever saw it.
Rent, utilities, phone, insurance — by the time those fixed costs were accounted for, that money was already spent. And I knew I would have to dip into the next paycheck just to cover what was left. That was before groceries. Before gas. Before anything unexpected.
In an average two-paycheck month, more than half of my income disappeared into obligations I couldn’t avoid. I hadn’t eaten yet. I hadn’t put anything in savings. I hadn’t done anything remotely discretionary. The money was simply spoken for.
And this was without children. Without a spouse. Without major medical issues.
I was lucky.
Even so, I was worried. What if my car broke down? What if I needed new tires? What if I had to see a doctor and pay a copay? What if a utility bill spiked during extreme weather?
I managed to save a little, but it wasn’t much. One accident. One unexpected bill. One bad month. That’s all it takes to wipe out stability.
And I heard the same advice people hear today.
“Move somewhere cheaper.”
“Find a better paying job.”
But those things aren’t easy.
I was already living about as cheaply as one could in the city I was in. Moving would have meant giving up my income without any guarantee of finding another job quickly. Relocating isn’t free — there are deposits, moving costs, time off work, and the risk that nothing better is waiting on the other side.
As for finding a higher-paying job, I did what people do. I applied. Repeatedly. But with limited experience, there weren’t many opportunities available. You can’t just declare yourself worth more money and have the market respond.
That’s the disconnect in a lot of these conversations. The advice sounds simple from the outside. In practice, it’s complicated, risky, and often expensive.
Many politicians — including wealthy figures like Donald Trump — have never had to decide whether to pay the water bill or the electric bill.
They’ve never had to ask whether they should put something on a credit card, take out a short-term loan, or whether the bank would even approve them.
Instead, we hear promises.
“We’ll bring prices down. We’ll make things more affordable.”
But let’s be honest.
Prices rarely come down.
Even when tariffs are lifted, companies don’t usually slash prices. If consumers have proven they’ll pay a higher amount, corporations keep the higher margin. That’s how profit works.
Landlords don’t lower rent out of kindness. Developers don’t cut prices if demand remains high. Corporations don’t voluntarily reduce revenue.
As long as someone can pay, the price stays.
That’s the reality.
There are ideas that could help, such as subsidized healthcare, universal healthcare, raising the minimum wage, and universal basic income.
Some of these would ease pressure. Raising the minimum wage would be a good start.
But even that has limits. It doesn’t help people already earning above minimum wage but still struggling. It doesn’t help people who can’t find stable work. And it doesn’t directly lower rent, utilities, or insurance.
Universal income has been proposed, but simply sending checks without structure creates other economic and civic challenges. If income support exists, it should be tied to civic contribution or community engagement.
Still, the core issue would remain: fixed expenses are too high relative to wages.
For decades, American policy has followed the influence of economists like Milton Friedman, whose shareholder theory shaped modern corporate behavior. Leaders like Ronald Reagan embraced the idea that a corporation’s only responsibility is to its shareholders.
The result?
Corporations operate with profit as the sole priority.
But if you function in this country — as an individual or a business — you benefit from public infrastructure, public institutions, and public stability. That means there is a civic responsibility attached to success.
The idea that corporations owe nothing to society beyond shareholder returns has hollowed out communities and distorted policy.
Until that philosophy changes, nothing changes.
Real solutions would involve rebalancing corporate power, enforcing civic responsibility in business, reducing monopolistic pricing power, expanding worker leverage, and creating structural reforms that increase take-home income.
The answer isn’t just cutting prices — because that’s not how markets typically behave.
The answer is shifting power and increasing people’s capacity to absorb life’s unavoidable costs.
The cost-of-living crisis isn’t about one policy or one party.
It’s about structural imbalance.
It’s about an economy where essential costs are fixed and rising, wages lag behind, corporate profit margins expand, and political promises rarely translate into reform.
We don’t need cosmetic tweaks. We need serious change.
Some friends and I have written a book outlining 95 proposed reforms to address structural problems like these. If you’re interested, I’ll include a link below.
If not, that’s fine too.
But understand this: until we confront the imbalance between essential costs and real wages — and until we demand civic responsibility from powerful institutions — the cost-of-living crisis will remain the defining force in American politics.
And it will only get worse.
America doesn’t need better slogans.
It needs structural reform.
MPCooper 
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