INTERESTED PARTIES MEMO
RE: Americans Want Solutions to Affordability Crisis at SOTU, While Trump is Unlikely to Deliver Democrats Have an Opportunity
DATE: February 23, 2026
As the State of the Union approaches, Americans across the country are eager for leaders to tackle the growing affordability crisis. They’ll be watching to see if President Trump acknowledges the real culprit behind rising costs or continues to protect the billionaire class that bankrolled his campaign.
The moment demands more from members of Congress as well. It’s not enough to draw contrasts with the administration’s policies: Lawmakers must come to the table with a real, forward-looking economic agenda that builds an economy that actually empowers working families.
At this moment, Americans are experiencing increasing housing, health care, childcare, grocery, and energy costs as a result of the unprecedented concentrations of extreme wealth and economic power in the hands of the ultra-wealthy:
- Billionaires are increasing the cost of housing. Billionaire-run private equity firms currently own at least 1.6 million housing units in the United States and deploy aggressive revenue-maximizing tactics to generate significant returns for their investors while increasing costs for families. Many of the metropolitan areas where private equity landlords own a large share of apartments—Tampa, Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, and Charlotte—have experienced sharp increases in rent.
- Billionaires are increasing the cost of health care and degrading care quality. Billionaire-run private equity loads hospitals with debt, cuts operating costs, and shuts down “unprofitable” services so billionaire investors can extract more cash—while patients in entire regions lose access to basic care or pay more for care.
- As just one example, private equity firm Apollo Global Management now owns two of the largest hospital systems in the United States and controls 235 hospitals across 37 states. Under Apollo’s ownership, hospitals have been burdened with sky-high debt, reduced staff, and degraded essential services, including OB-GYN and pediatric care.
- Meanwhile, major health insurers funnel skyrocketing premiums into shareholder payouts rather than controlling costs: the largest healthcare companies increased shareholder dividends and stock buybacks by 315% between 2001 and 2022, allocating 95% of their profits to Wall Street investors while premiums for employer-sponsored family coverage climbed to over $25,000 annually.
- Billionaires are increasing the cost of child care. Billionaire-run private equity firms now control an estimated 12% of the U.S. childcare market, concentrating ownership in large for‑profit chains that target higher‑income communities and charge premium prices far above federal affordability benchmarks. Families are already spending roughly 27% of their income on childcare, as average costs have jumped about 30% since 2020.
- Billionaires are increasing grocery prices. Billionaire-run private equity firms have contributed to rising grocery costs by using highly leveraged buyouts to acquire supermarket chains, saddling them with billions in debt that must be serviced through aggressive cost‑cutting and higher margins on everyday items.
- Cerberus Capital Management’s Albertsons‑Safeway has reported gross margins in the high‑20 percent range—significantly above key competitors—while its private‑equity owners have extracted billions in dividends, fees, and real‑estate sales. This leaves the chain with fewer resources and incentives to invest in stores or compete on price, shifting the burden onto consumers through higher grocery bills.
- Billionaires are increasing energy costs. As billionaire tech giants build energy‑hungry AI data centers, working families are footing the bill. These data centers already consume more than 4% of all U.S. electricity and are projected to claim up to 12% by 2028, driving up demand and pushing household electricity bills higher. Residential electricity prices jumped about 7% in 2025—more than double the overall inflation rate—while data centers accounted for roughly 40% of U.S. electricity demand growth.
- Billionaires are increasing the costs of consumer goods and hobbies. Decades of market consolidation and laissez faire federal oversight have created de facto monopolies in everything from consumer tech to beef production, from pharmaceuticals to rental cars, from airlines to cowboy boots. During the pandemic, corporations were able to use their unchecked market power to boost prices far above their real costs, lining their pockets at consumers’ expense. We might not even know how extensive this “greedflation” was but for the fact that CEOs kept bragging about their actions on shareholder earnings calls. And then, of course, there’s the ever-present role that private equity has played in squeezing every last dime out of Americans, from knitting to youth sports. Want to record your own kid playing youth hockey? You can’t without first paying a hefty fee to the private equity firm who owns the rink.
President Trump’s policies are only worsening the disparity in wealth and power. Under his watch, billionaire wealth grew 22% in 2025, from $6.7 trillion to $8.2 trillion and the number of billionaires increased from 814 to 935.
Despite last minute efforts to address affordability, Trump has already sided with the ultra-wealthy. Now it’s up to lawmakers who actually want to better the lives of their constituents to offer bold solutions that break up the concentration of extreme wealth, not protect it.
Since the affordability crisis is a wealth hoarding crisis, any serious effort to shift power in our economy away from billionaires and toward working people must begin with taxing extreme wealth. Policymakers must break up dangerous concentrations of wealth before they break us. Multiple policy approaches exist, from wealth taxes to inheritance reform. But the principle is clear: No individual should accumulate so much wealth that they can buy power over democratic institutions and essential services that American families rely on for their survival.
Signatories,
American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
Americans for Financial Reform
Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF)
Coalition on Human Needs
Families Over Billionaires
Friends Committee On National Legislation
Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality
Institute for Policy Studies Poverty Project
Just Solutions
Latino Farmers & Ranchers International, Inc.
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
Patriotic Millionaires
People’s Action
Pennsylvania Policy Center
Popular Democracy
Private Equity Stakeholder Project
Public Citizen
Rise Up WV
State Innovation Exchange (SiX) Action
Strong Economy For All Coalition
Tax the Greedy Billionaires
Voices for Progress
Voices of Health Care Action
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