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Affordability & Cost of Living blog
EV Subsidies and the Evidence From Norway to California Norway sells almost nothing but electric cars now. Did tax breaks, chargers or fuel prices do the work, and what does the evidence mean for American buyers after 2025? How to Dispute a Medical Bill and Keep It Off Your Credit Report A step-by-step guide to itemized bills, insurance appeals, hospital charity care, payment plans and credit report disputes, built on the 2022 change in how the credit bureaus treat medical debt. How to Testify at a City Council Meeting in Three Minutes How public comment works at city hall: finding the agenda, signing up, timing a three-minute statement, submitting written testimony, and turning one appearance into a lasting voice. New York's 2019 Rent Law and the Rules It Rewrote for Stabilized Apartments What the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 changed for New York's rent-stabilized apartments, what owners lost, and why the fight over it never stopped. Oregon Became the First State to Cap Rent Increases Statewide How Oregon's 2019 law, SB 608, limited yearly rent hikes and no-cause evictions, why it is not classic rent control, and what the cap has and has not done for renters. Rent Control and What the Economists Actually Found in San Francisco San Francisco's 1994 vote extended rent control to small buildings. A Stanford study found it kept tenants in their homes and shrank the rental supply. Both findings matter. Seattle's $15 Vote and the Studies That Argued Over It Seattle voted for a $15 minimum wage in 2014, and two university teams reached opposite verdicts on it. What each study found, why they disagreed, and what economists now mostly agree on. The Federal Minimum Wage Has Been $7.25 Since July 2009 Why the federal wage floor has not moved since 2009, how much inflation has taken from it, how states and cities raised their own, and who is still paid the federal minimum. The First Ten Drugs and How Medicare Price Negotiation Works In August 2023 Medicare named the first ten drugs whose prices it would negotiate, from Eliquis to Jardiance. Here is how drugs get picked, how the bargaining runs, and what changed in 2026. The New Jersey Fast Food Study That Rewrote the Minimum Wage Debate How two Princeton economists phoned hundreds of burger restaurants on both sides of the New Jersey-Pennsylvania line in 1992, found no job losses from a raise, and changed how economics is done. The Tax Credit That Builds Most of America's New Affordable Rentals The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, born in Reagan's 1986 tax law, quietly finances most new affordable apartments. Here is how it works, who profits and why it is so slow. The Year Child Poverty Fell by Nearly Half, and Why It Came Back In 2021 a monthly child tax credit drove child poverty to the lowest rate on record; when the payments stopped it more than doubled. Here is the case for bringing it back for good. Twenty-Five Cents an Hour: How the Fair Labor Standards Act Passed How Frances Perkins and Franklin Roosevelt won the first federal minimum wage and 40-hour week in 1938, the fight it took to pass, and the workers it left out by design. What Minneapolis Learned After Ending Single-Family-Only Zoning Minneapolis became the first big US city to end single-family-only zoning in 2018. Few triplexes followed, but the city built a lot of housing and rents held steadier than nearby. Why ACA Premiums Jumped When the Enhanced Tax Credits Expired The 2021 rescue law erased the ACA's 400 percent subsidy cliff and cut what families paid. When those enhanced credits lapsed after 2025, the cliff came back. Here is how the math works. Why Progressive Cities Became the Hardest Places in America to Build A San Francisco vote against 495 apartments on a parking lot shows how progressive cities made building slow and costly, and why the left has to own and fix its permitting problem.