Natasha Sarin published Everything Feels So Expensive. Here’s What’s Really Going On in The New York Times on Oct. 21, identifying housing, health care, education, and child and elder care as the costs driving financial stress across income levels. The piece argues that quick fixes such as credit card rate caps or rent freezes risk “an affordability doom loop.” Instead, she calls for what she terms a “Newer Deal,” a holistic national agenda focused on economic growth that can be widely shared.
Sarin writes that the real crisis is not whether wages are outpacing inflation but “whether we have enough confidence in our economic futures to trust that we can afford the lives we expect for ourselves and our families.” She argues that high costs, combined with unpredictability in housing, health insurance, child care and elder care, leave Americans feeling the floor could drop out at any time.
The argument arrives less than two weeks before the midterm elections, in which affordability has become a central issue. Sarin proposes increasing the supply of housing and caregivers, making Social Security solvent and improving health care efficiency. She would pay for those measures with higher taxes on high earners and on corporations profiting from artificial intelligence. She acknowledges that economic populism resonates in both parties and argues that recognizing the crisis is the first step toward addressing it. The Consumer Bankers Association circulated the piece to its members Oct. 23.
About Natasha Sarin
Natasha Sarin is a professor of law at Yale Law School with a secondary appointment at the Yale School of Management. She is president and co-founder of the Budget Lab at Yale, a nonpartisan research center whose analysis of federal policy effects has become a leading source of tariff data. She previously served at the U.S. Treasury Department as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy and as counselor to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Her research centers on public finance and financial regulation, including tax policy, household finance, insurance and macroprudential risk management. She is a contributing columnist at The Washington Post and a frequent guest on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Natasha Sarin is exclusively represented by Stellant Group for speaking engagements, including keynotes, fireside chats and panel discussions, with leadership teams thinking through fiscal policy, affordability, AI’s implications for regulation and the labor market, and economic security in a volatile global economy. For consulting or advisory work, please reach out for a custom proposal.
