When viewing the current political and economic climate in America, one of the most frequently deployed techniques by bad-faith actors is the manipulation of language, specifically using words outside their actual meaning and context, rendering them effectively meaningless or changing their meaning altogether. For example, a scandal-ridden federal politician can excuse his or her financial corruption under the guise of maintaining “national security,” even if the matter has nothing to do with the actual national security of America.
“National security” has essentially become a catch-all term, something a politician can claim as a purpose while engaging in, say, insider stock trading and, in today’s media climate, reasonably expect minimal pushback. National security, like terms such as “seeking accountability” or “economic development,” often serves as a thought-terminating cliché that can mean everything and nothing at the same time, but it can accomplish the goal of stopping invasive lines of questioning from journalists or constituents. Certainly, economic development is a real, tangible concept that improves lives, but it can be invoked in a vague, opaque way for public-relations purposes, often to shield unpopular, harmful policies.
Another word that has recently entered this zone of vague public-relations speak is “affordability.” Everyone understands that affordability, in its simplest terms, refers to prices the average person or family can pay for goods or services without incurring financial hardship or instability. For example, to your average American, who likely doesn’t have a great deal of savings, a dinner exceeding $100 on a regular basis is unaffordable. However, when today’s political and media classes discuss affordability, it can seem as if they are speaking a different language or referencing a separate reality, because for the average American family, very little is affordable anymore.
But many media pundits and members of Congress appear reluctant to grapple with the reality that many Americans have been priced out of entire sectors of the economy, making affordability a moot point. The concept of affordability in the world of Congress and elite media punditry aligns with the budgets of individuals with net worths exceeding $10 million. The reality they fail to recognize is that, according to virtually every data set, more than 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. These are people who, far from deliberating on notions of affordability, are preoccupied with survival.
A recent article in Fortune highlights how difficult the current economy is to navigate for American families without high net worths. The article reports that, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis based on survey data from earlier in 2026, 60% of U.S. adults now identify as “working class.” Looking more closely at the data, this includes millions of top earners who believe their economic plight is largely synonymous with a term long reserved for low-income workers, including over half of college graduates. As the article further explains, “Working class has long been an ambiguous label for low-income earners, people without four-year degrees, and blue-collar workers. But according to survey data, half of upper-income adults (those earning more than $155,600 annually) now see themselves as working class. That income would have placed them firmly in the upper middle class in the early 2000s.”
Much like the word “affordability,” the term “working class” loses meaning when the reality underneath it shifts. As many goods and services become unaffordable for the majority of Americans, so too shifts the perception of the “working class.” Use of language and changes in meaning and context reflect material reality, and the terms we use to express economic reality are shifting right in front of our eyes.
As the Fortune article further details, “Even wealthier and more educated people have begun to feel the squeeze as inflation continues to erode Americans’ paychecks while wage growth fails to keep up. Ordinary purchases like groceries have become harder to afford, putting the American Dream more out of reach than ever. A study by Investopedia found that achieving the American Dream — a house in the suburbs, two children, and a car — costs $4.4 million, more than $1 million more than most Americans will earn in their lifetimes. The median price of a new single-family home in the first quarter of 2026 was $403,200, according to the National Association of Home Builders. This marks the fourth consecutive quarter in which existing home prices have exceeded new home prices. The typical U.S. homebuyer is now 59 years old, up from 39 just 15 years ago, and the median first-time buyer has climbed to a record 40.”
The barriers that have been set up to prevent economic mobility are now affecting every facet of society. One particularly notable aspect of this is the complete disillusionment of younger generations. Gen Z, the most recent generation to enter adulthood, is burdened by record-high debt, AI-related threats and a historically difficult entry-level job market. In recent polling, only 21% of young people today think the American Dream is achievable for them, down from over 50% just a decade ago. That is a stunning drop in a relatively short amount of time, and it’s easy to see why it’s occurred.
The most recent official data from the New York Fed shows that recent graduates were unemployed at a rate of 5.7% in June, and serious economic analysts know that unemployment figures tend to wildly undershoot the actual figures. Many recent college graduates have reported a truly dire job market, filled with fake online job postings, non-existent responses and a sense of complete futility when searching for even entry-level jobs. Also, young people are facing the ever-present threat of artificial intelligence wiping out jobs across a multitude of industries. It’s a recipe for utter cynicism destined to evolve into nihilism among younger generations.
Going back to “affordability,” there’s a reason that it has become a favored buzzword among our political and media classes. It’s an indistinct catch-all that signals a politician is ostensibly empathetic to his or her constituents’ economic plight, but that doesn’t commit him or her to concrete policies. Occasionally, a politician will elaborate upon the concept with actual plans to lower costs for everyday people, but that is the exception to the rule. More often, it’s used as a signal to convey broadly populist sympathies, free of any substantive course of action.
The transformation of affordability into a vague, PR-friendly buzzword has made the concept essentially meaningless in our modern economy. Bolstering this is a Harris Poll from early 2026, which found that 64% of six-figure earners said their once-high income is no longer a marker of success, but rather a minimum to stay afloat. Even many six-figure households say buying a home feels unattainable. For high-income earners in the six-figure range, it would be reasonably appropriate to describe the modern American economy as unaffordable. However, for many working-class Americans, it would be more accurate to describe it as a constant balancing act on the razor’s edge of homelessness. That’s a far different state than a mere affordability crunch.
As the economy becomes more difficult to navigate for most Americans, the effort to render language both all-meaning and meaningless will continue unabated. As we have seen in recent years, the use of language to both soften and sell unacceptable choices is an enormous asset for malicious actors in power. Human beings respond to language when it feels comforting or positive, but we must vigilantly look beyond what is spoken or written. We must think critically about why certain words are used, and what benefit they provide to those who deploy them.
In our modern world, language is a tool that buys time to sell unpalatable policies, and words are a shield that defend the indefensible. Rendering language meaningless, or even changing its meaning altogether, is a powerful defense against a dissatisfied population. We, as Americans, must think hyper-critically about the language we encounter, and whether it is being used to sell or soften what may become a critical problem in the future.
