Make America affordable again
The cost of living in America is getting to be outrageous and out-of-control.
In the United States, the federal minimum wage in 2023 is $7.25 per hour. Zero increase in the minimum wage over the past 13 years while inflation has increased means that people are actually earning less—they have less “buying power” with the same number of dollars. Everyone in the US knows that gas and grocery prices have increased remarkably over the past few years, even more so during the Plandemic.
My monthly water bill for a home with 2 adults, no kids/pets/pool and no garden other than a few house plants is $127 per month. Thus, a person making minimum wage in the US would have to work 17.5 hours per month just to pay for tap water in our region. In other countries, the monthly water bill is more like $15 - $50; most other countries have their water provided by the local-national government while in the USA nearly all utilities are privatized so that citizens are forced to pay private companies to profit from basic utilities such as gas, water, and electricity.
In the United States, the Reagan administration issued new marching orders: “Don’t just stand there, undo something.” A central tenet of the “undoing” has been the privatization of government assets and services.1
In Miami, our local “public” park charged us $35 for 1 hour of tennis. I assume this was a “public-private partnership” by which private companies use public assets, pay a fraction of the value, and make major profits.
The cost of living in America is getting to be outrageous and out-of-control.
America needs a jobs-infrastructure program.
America needs a jobs and infrastructure program. A national infrastructure-jobs program would simultaneously 1) put more cash into effective-local circulation to support local economies, 2) raise the quality of life for tens of thousands of people, and 3) quite possibly help to control prices as more customers would have more voice with a modest income and would thus be able to bargain for reasonable prices.
Take the example of Spain—incomes are low and thus prices are low and quality of life is high; Spaniards have among the best health outcomes, life expectancies, and quality of life in all of Europe and all of the world.
When we lived in Spain, I had a bright and sunny 3-bedroom townhome 15 minutes from the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea that I paid €29,000 which is roughly $33,000 in US dollars and I had a farm in the mountains that I paid €100,000 or roughly $125,000 in US dollars. Living that well in the US for the same money could never happen. Also, I paid €700 per year for full medical and dental insurance in Europe (atop the public medical-dental coverage which was completely FREE) whereas here in the USA I pay $8,000 per year for only partial coverage.
https://hbr.org/1991/11/does-privatization-serve-the-public-interest