The Oxford Press linked to the famous British University and publisher of the world’s best known English Dictionary has selected its favorite new word for 2025: “rage bait.” It means exactly what you might guess, even if, like me, you haven’t actually encountered it. Think of any five minutes spent listening to Tucker Carlson or President Donald Trump. I would wager the same could be said for Nigel Farage. I’m also willing to predict at least one other word likely to make several 2025 lists will be “affordability.” It offers the strength of actually being a single word and, if not selected this year, it will likely prove a frontrunner in 2026.

It’s interesting, however, the word’s meaning has substantially altered during the course of my lifetime. Sixty years ago, affordability was usually employed, if at all, to reference the out-of-reach pricing for luxury items. Most Americans settled for purchasing Chevys or Fords rather than a Cadillac. Forget about European cars, with the exception of VW Bugs. The same could be said about mink coats and Caribbean vacations. While inflation-adjusted incomes were far smaller than they are today, so were costs. Hired by AT&T in 1967 following graduation from the University of Maryland I was awarded the sumptuous salary of $12,000. I bought myself a spanking-new, midnight-blue Camaro for $3,000 with all the available bells and whistles, including an 8-track tape deck. Cokes cost a nickel.

Though I secured a loan, the debt was only 25% of my total gross earnings. If necessary, I could have survived on Ramen noodles and cheap beer for six months to save that much cash. My only other regular expense was $230 for rent at a newly built garden apartment in Greenbelt, Maryland. A similar auto purchase today would come in at 75% to 100% of an average annual income while rents have jumped 500% to 600%. I make these comparisons because current discussions of affordability tend to focus on groceries, utility bills, childcare and health insurance premiums without considering structural economic changes that consume an ever-larger share of American paychecks. Adjusted for inflation, discretionary income has been shrinking for decades.

In 1973 I purchased a brick Tudor in North Denver for $34,000, priced at 80% of my salary at Mountain Bell. With an average home price along the Front Range reaching $550,000 today and family incomes pegged at $75,000, the mortgage bite has grown 700%. Another largely hidden cost is the financialization of so many services that used to be independently owned and operated businesses. Hedge funds have been snapping up funeral homes, assisted living and nursing homes, medical and veterinary practices, single-family homes, pharmacies and insurance agencies — then operating them to maximize profits. Family incomes have been severely eroded long before parents make it to the grocery store or pay their electric bills.

The likely outcome of a pending Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Slaughter (a Federal Trade Commissioner appointed during Trump’s first -presidency and recently sacked for insufficient defense of executive orders) will extend presidential power over appointees to independent federal regulatory agencies, constituting another fiscal storm cloud forming on the horizon for the middle class. The New Deal launched by Franklin Roosevelt with a tossed salad of agencies best recognized by their acronyms — the FTC, FDA, CDC, NLRB, FCC — and more recent additions like the EPA, OSHA and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were all structured by Congress to operate at arm’s-length distance from White House control. Appointed, bipartisan governing boards with staggered terms that overlap presidential administrations, together with a guarantee members can only be removed for cause, have been integral parts of the Congressional design for more than a century. This does not seem to have quenched the court’s conservative majority’s enthusiasm for the dubious ‘unitary executive’ thesis pushed by the Department of Justice.

As Matt Ford observes, writing for The New Republic, “This will be helpful to any business that thrives in a weaker regulatory environment by grifting Americans outright, or by exploiting the non-enforcement of labor laws, consumer protection laws and securities laws. Scammers, predators and white-collar criminals of all varieties shall inevitably rejoice when this decision is handed down… as a result, Trump v. Slaughter is poised to be a landmark step on this country’s turn away from democratic governance and good government in favor of oligarchy and despotism.” Couple these costs with a disastrous tariff schedule only now beginning to drive up prices for Americans and their economic prospects appear dismal. All this is occurring in the context of a presidency incapable of admitting error even when mailing $12 billion to farmers facing bankruptcy as a consequence of its ill-conceived trade war with China.

Meanwhile, the affordability “hoax” threatens to become a survivability challenge. Democratic candidates in 2026 are nearly certain to try and ride the affordability pony to a congressional majority. They face significant hurdles they will have to clear, however, between now and November next. Another shutdown over health care, perhaps? A rupture of the artificial intelligence bubble keeping the economy afloat? A Venezuelan misadventure gone wrong? A collapse of the NATO Alliance? Most of all, Democrats require an economic plan that makes sense and genuinely places America first for long enough to dispatch the affordability crisis onto our rearview mirror.

By 2027 the word of the year should be “rescue.” Families are taking on debt just as fast as Congress. Angela Hanks of the Century Foundation points out, “A lot of families are using debt to pay for groceries… a sign of people struggling.” And Monica Potts, writing for The New Republic concludes, “Trump counters that the (affordability) claims of the Democrats are a hoax. But families do need real relief, and they’re unlikely to get it from an administration that continues to deny how its policies may be affecting them.” Voters aren’t blind to the truth. More and more workers are seeking second jobs in order to pay their bills.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.