Beneath the manufactured culture wars and other artificial divides, millions of working people share the same basic concern: they can’t afford a decent life.
A survey of more than 30,000 adults conducted by the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility and the WK Kellogg Foundation found that 60 percent wanted greater financial security within the next three to five years. They weren’t demanding yachts or luxury estates. They wanted housing, food, healthcare and enough money left over to enjoy life.
“A better life for me and my family would look like being able to buy a home, and being able to afford all the basic necessities, rent, utilities, car, food, healthcare – as well as being able to have enough left over to save for the future for retirement and vacations,” said a 35-year-old respondent from Dearborn Heights, Michigan.
Under capitalism, even this modest vision is placed beyond the reach of millions. Forty percent of respondents described themselves as either financially vulnerable or struggling to meet basic needs. Nine out of ten named groceries and food as their leading cost-of-living concern, followed by housing, transportation and healthcare.
A 49-year-old father in Philadelphia said success meant being able to pay for his child’s school field trips or help a relative with bills. “I just want to be comfortable,” he said.
That simple statement cuts through the propaganda. Workers aren’t struggling because they expect too much. They’re struggling because the wealth they create is controlled by a capitalist class whose profits depend on holding down wages and charging as much as possible for life’s necessities.
Food, shelter, transportation, electricity and medicine aren’t organized around human need. They’re commodities sold for profit. The worker meets them as a series of bills, while the capitalist sees them as opportunities for accumulation. Inflation makes this exploitation more visible, but it doesn’t create the underlying contradiction. Workers produce society’s wealth and still have to worry about whether they can afford groceries.
A recent Harris poll found that 95 percent of Americans believe the country is experiencing an affordability crisis. Paychecks aren’t keeping pace with the rising cost of food, fuel, electricity and housing. Yet the stock market has reached record highs, while investment in artificial intelligence continues to surge.
There’s no contradiction here from the standpoint of capital. The stock market measures the expectations of investors, not the well-being of workers. A booming market can exist alongside widespread hardship because capitalist growth is growth in profits and asset values, not necessarily growth in security, leisure or living standards for the people who do the work.
“While we spend a lot of time discussing some of these macroeconomic indicators – from the jobs report, to quarterly GDP growth, to what’s happening with interest rates – they alone can’t help us understand how people are actually experiencing the economy in their day-to-day lives,” said JP Julien, a partner at McKinsey involved in the research.
The survey also found differences between rural and urban respondents. Rural residents emphasized the need for better jobs and career paths, while urban residents pointed to unaffordable housing and public safety. But these aren’t separate problems. Rural communities are starved of investment when capital can’t extract sufficient profit from them, while urban land and housing are turned into speculative assets. In both cases, working people lose control over the conditions of their lives.
The same class system operates on an international scale. Under imperialism, finance capital searches the world for markets, resources and cheaper labor, while the state protects its interests abroad. Enormous resources are mobilized for corporate expansion and geopolitical power, even as workers at home are told that affordable housing, healthcare and reliable public services cost too much. The scarcity confronting working people isn’t natural. It’s imposed by a social order that puts accumulation ahead of need.
Sixty percent of those surveyed said local, state and federal governments have a responsibility to help people get ahead. Only 30 percent said government institutions had actually been helpful.
That gap reflects the class character of the capitalist state. Government isn’t a neutral referee standing above society. Its central function is to defend private property and maintain the conditions for capital accumulation. Reforms can be won through struggle, and they can make an enormous difference in people’s lives. But when corporate profit comes into conflict with popular need, the state consistently shows whose interests it was built to protect.
In the absence of dependable public support, respondents relied most heavily on friends and family. Those who felt strongly connected to their communities were more than twice as likely to feel in control of their futures and nearly four times as likely to believe their lives had momentum. Yet only one-third reported having that strong sense of connection.
“We’re not too connected with our community and neighborhood,” said a 61-year-old respondent from Los Angeles. “There are a few people that we know, but for the most part, most people keep to themselves.”
Capitalism doesn’t merely exploit workers at the workplace. It isolates them from one another. Long hours, financial anxiety, displacement and competition weaken the social bonds people need to resist. But community solidarity can’t stop at informal help between relatives and neighbors. It must become organized class power: unions, tenant organizations, mass political organizations and institutions capable of fighting for working-class rule.
Higher wages, public housing, price controls on necessities, universal healthcare and publicly owned utilities would provide immediate relief. But lasting security requires more than relief. It requires taking the economy out of the hands of the capitalist class and organizing production through democratic planning for human need.
Working people already produce enough wealth for everyone to live securely. The question is who controls it. Until workers hold political power and direct that wealth toward social needs, the “better life” described in the survey will remain something capitalism promises and systematically denies.
