From healthcare to education policy, the language of affordability is everywhere.

As the 2020 presidential race gets underway, we can expect phrases like “affordable access” to be at least as ubiquitous as references to the middle class or vague refrains about how there’s more that unites people than divides them, particularly from Democrats. The word “affordable” appeared some thirty-one times in the 2016 Democratic Party platform, in reference to policy areas ranging from housing and college tuition to childcare and finance (for comparison, “middle class,” that hallowed floating signifier, appeared only sixteen times).

Its omnipresence in political language makes a certain intuitive sense. Life for many Americans is, after all, dominated by institutions that make things more expensive by design: health insurers offering pricey packages for even the most basic coverage; telecom and energy giants imposing inscrutable new rates and fees on customers trying to maintain their cell service, keep the lights on, or not freeze to death in the winter; schools making themselves ever more exclusive through higher tuition; landlords raising the rents at each and every opportunity.