“Affordability” has become the buzzword in criticizing both the Trump administration and our longstanding capitalist system. Although I acknowledge the disparate impacts of the K-shaped economy, the Left’s constant harping on fairness and wealth inequality is largely a red herring.It is the Left’s own policies that have caused most of the damage, while free-market capitalism has lifted vast numbers from poverty, as real incomes, consumption, and life expectancies have generally risen across demographics — i.e., the economic “pie” grows faster than inflation and allows each slice of the pie to grow larger. It certainly doesn’t warrant dismantling an economic system that has created so much innovation, value, efficiency, and wealth for this country and the world.In fact, the exception to broadly rising living standards nationally seems to lie in many of our deep-blue cities and states, which tend to have the worst affordability. U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 rankings of states, which put California dead last in its specific affordability metric, followed by a lineup of other deep-blue states: New Jersey, Hawaii, New York, Washington, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Colorado. It also put California in 50th place for the broader “opportunity” category, which combines economic opportunity, affordability, and equality across demographic groups.