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When I was in New York during the recent mayoral election campaign, I saw a brilliant video ad by Zohran Mamdani, the eventual winner. He asked street vendors why a plate of halal meat and rice cost so much. They said they each had to pay $20,000 or so to a middleman for a permit. The city doesn’t issue enough permits, so they trade informally at many times the official price, and this cost is passed on to hungry New Yorkers. More permits would mean cheaper halal food.
Sometimes when politicians talk about an “affordability crisis”, they diagnose the problem correctly—as in this case. But often they do not, as
we explore in this week’s cover leader.
Prices have risen in recent years, often markedly, but wages in most rich countries have risen faster. So in this sense
life has grown more affordable,
even if specific things have not. Meanwhile, voters make contradictory demands: higher wages but cheaper haircuts; rising prices for the homes they own, lower prices for the ones their children want to buy.
All rich countries face these tensions, and there are no politically frictionless answers. The danger is that politicians will offer “fixes” that make things worse, such as price controls (which Mr Mamdani favours for rent) or political arm-twisting of central banks (which President Donald Trump threatens). This week The Economist unpacks the truth and the myth behind what will surely be the most potent political slogan of 2026: affordability.
On the Insider this week, something different. We asked readers to send in questions about the news agenda and suggest which stories we should take a harder look at in 2026. And we invited queries about how The Economist works. Zanny Minton Beddoes, our editor-in-chief, sat down with other senior editors to discuss both themes. You can
check it out now on our Insider Hub.
Thank you to everyone who
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to The Economist in 2025; we’ll see you in the new year. | 
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