Everybody is running around this year saying “affordability.” But what does it actually mean to us? It’s arithmetic, with two factors: what you get paid and what you got charged. Two forces controlled by forces that you have little power over, and both have you in a headlock.
Since 1979, American workers have gotten about 94% more productive. And “productive” means that in an hour of work, we produce almost twice as much as we used to. Same hour. Same worker. Almost twice the output. The typical worker’s pay, after inflation, went up about 33%. Almost twice the output, about a third more pay. Somebody’s very happy about that. Hint: it isn’t you.
At the bottom of the ladder, Pennsylvania did something remarkable.
Nothing.
The minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009, and every neighboring state pays more. The House passed a bill this year to reach $15 by 2029. The Senate sent it to committee, which is the legislative equivalent of putting a bill in hospice. Meanwhile, $7.25 doesn’t buy what it used to. What filled a grocery bag back then barely fills two-thirds of it today. Nobody voted for that pay cut. It just happened, because nothing happened.
Buy your own insurance coverage, and it got uglier. People on Pennie, the state’s marketplace for folks who don’t get insurance through work, faced an average 102 percent price jump this year when federal tax credits ran out about one in five dropped coverage, mostly older and rural folks.
READ: Thanks to Republican Medicaid and ACA Cuts, Pennsylvanians Find Themselves in a Health Care Crisis
We tell people to take personal responsibility. Fine. But you can’t demand people be responsible and then make the responsible choice unaffordable.
Lehigh County already had about 63 million square feet of industrial space a few years back. Up in West Rockhill, a 330,000-square-foot warehouse landed financing for a 30-acre site.
Apparently, when a box store needs a home, we can figure it out. But when the guy driving the forklift needs a home, it suddenly gets complicated.
So prices do what prices do.
In July, the median Bucks County home sold for $546,665, up 6% from a year ago. The Lehigh Valley median set a record at $389,500. There’s about a month and a half of homes for sale; a healthy market has five or six months. In plenty of townships, a warehouse gets approved faster than a duplex. We zoned the starter home out of existence.
Already own a place? You’re on a different hook.
School property taxes climb whether your paycheck does or not. Pennsylvania’s main relief is a once-a-year check called the Property Tax/Rent Rebate. You only get it if you’re 65 or older, a widow or widower over 50, or disabled, and your household makes under $46,520. If you earn more than about $18,600, the check tops out at $380. A young family in Upper Milford or Sellersville gets nothing.
Why doesn’t any of this get fixed? Look at who pays for the people who’d fix it. Pennsylvania is one of only 12 states with no limit on what one donor can hand a political candidate. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Allegheny County cap their own local races. State lawmakers gave themselves a pass. Then come the gifts, with no dollar limit on those either. The law says the donor can’t intend a bribe. Sincerity! That’s the safeguard.
READ: These 20 Corporations Are Major Culprits in the Affordability Crisis
Slip a cop a twenty, you get arrested. Slip a lawmaker a ski weekend, it’s “relationship building.” Same twenty. Much better outcome for the person giving it.
What you get paid and what you get charged. Your pay is stuck in 2009. The cost of living is at a record high. None of that is an accident. Somebody in Harrisburg decided $7.25 was good enough. Somebody wrote the zoning rules that say yes to the warehouse and no to the duplex. Somebody decided a donor can write a check with no ceiling. Every one of those was a choice, and choices can be made differently.
You did your part. You picked up the extra shift. The least Harrisburg can do is make the math work for ordinary people.
