The Affordability Crisis

Everyone I talk to tells me they’re struggling to make ends meet. The same paycheck doesn’t cut it anymore. Rent is up. The grocery bill is up. You put off going to the doctor because you’re stressed about the bill…and you have no visibility to what that bill might be before it lands in your mailbox after you’ve received care. Some of you have canceled your health insurance altogether after insurance premiums skyrocketed…after Trump and the Republicans let ACA subsidies expire. Tariffs are driving up the cost of your bill at your favorite local restaurant, and I can promise you the owner is sweating trying to balance how much of that cost increase they eat so they don’t drive you away.

And on top of all that, the President unilaterally took the United States into war with Iran. He told us he wants to spend $1.5 trillion on a war while telling us we can’t afford daycare, Medicare, Medicaid, and that the states should tax their residents even more to pay for those things. The war sent gas prices through the roof.

And there’s no relief in sight.

As I travel the state, I hear from families who are struggling, families who are already dealing with inflation and now Trump, who rather than focusing on the best interests of Americans, is focused abroad, bringing us into more conflicts rather than fixing our problems at home.

Let’s talk about two of the major costs crushing families hardest: housing and childcare. And let’s talk about how we can take the successes we’ve had in Michigan and expand them nationwide.

I have legislation in the state to codify the Tri-Share program into law permanently. This program splits the costs of child care three ways: the state pays a third, the employer pays a third, and the family pays a third. This allows families to access child care for a third of its original cost, drastically expanding access to working families while empowering more small businesses to provide childcare as a benefit to attract and retain the best employees.

I want to expand Michigan’s Rx Kids, a cash grant program for new moms. It’s simple and effective: $1,500 to moms while they’re pregnant, and $500 per month to moms for up to 12 months after birth. This program, which since its launch has had outstanding results, supports new moms resulting in fewer missed appointments, pre-term births, and NICU admissions; babies born at healthier birth weights; lower eviction rates and improved financial stability, and stronger local economies.

And a recent study found that RxKids helped cut the infant mortality rate in Flint in half.

Finally, it’s time to call our housing reality what it is: a housing emergency. In the Senate, I’ll push to officially declare a housing emergency. This would allow us to flood the market with funding, cut through the bureaucratic red tape to build, and create more opportunities for workers to build that housing to meet the demand. The United States is anywhere from 6-10 million homes short of simply meeting demand, and we have to act.

Meanwhile, the President is holding hostage the most significant federal housing legislation we’ve seen in decades.

In Michigan, the average home now costs $270,000, a cost that requires an annual household income of at least $100,000 to afford while the average household income in Michigan is closer to $70,000. Owning a home is simply out of reach for more and more of our residents. This is not the reality that we can allow to continue.

I know making real change to make life affordable is possible because in the state senate, we’ve done it. We expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit fivefold, eliminated the Snyder-era retirement tax on seniors, increased the minimum wage in Michigan to $15/hour by 2027 and pegged the wage to inflation thereafter to ensure wages always keep pace with costs.

We can’t settle for the way things have been. We can and must push for a new way forward, inspired by what we’ve accomplished here in Michigan. We can take on the people rigging prices against you: corporate hedge funds buying up houses and jacking up rents, grocery chains merging to kill competition and raise food prices, and the tech companies profiting off online scams.

Let’s take back the Senate and pass legislation that actually helps families.

– Mallory

Paid for by McMorrow for Michigan