With families continuing to face pressure from housing, food, energy and other everyday expenses, a new congressional policy blueprint is calling for a higher federal minimum wage, expanded housing assistance, affordable broadband and changes to federal tax, spending and trade policies.
National Urban League President/CEO Marc H. Morial unveiled the six-part ‘Affordability for All’ agenda this week, arguing that economic indicators such as stock market performance do not necessarily reflect the financial conditions experienced by many working households.
The proposal arrives less than two months before the midterm elections and calls on Congress to make affordability a greater priority.
At the top of the agenda is a national living wage. The proposal calls for increasing the federal minimum wage to reflect the current cost of living and then indexing it to inflation so that it automatically rises as prices increase.
Housing represents another major part of the plan. It calls for fully funding the federal Housing Choice Voucher program so that eligible households would receive rental assistance rather than remaining on waiting lists because of limited funding.
The proposal also calls for establishing a national affordable housing trust that would provide financing for the construction and preservation of affordable and workforce housing. Supporters argue that increasing the nation’s housing supply is necessary to address affordability rather than relying solely on assistance to renters.
Another provision would restore and strengthen the Affordable Connectivity Program, which provided assistance to lower-income households to help pay for broadband service. Morial argues that reliable internet service has become essential for employment, education, health care and economic mobility.
The agenda also takes aim at the sweeping tax and spending legislation enacted in 2025, officially Public Law 119-21. Morial calls for repealing provisions affecting Medicaid, nutrition assistance, education and student aid and restoring funding in those areas.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that changes made by the 2025 law will reduce federal Medicaid spending by about $1.2 trillion from 2026 through 2035 and Medicaid enrollment by 13.1 million people in 2035 compared with previous projections. CBO also projects approximately $211 billion less in federal spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, through 2035.
The final portion of the affordability agenda focuses on tariffs. It calls for ending tariffs that the organization says increase the prices consumers pay for imported goods and replacing them with trade policies designed to protect U.S. competitiveness without increasing household expenses. Federal tariff policy has changed repeatedly during 2026, including new tariffs imposed on imports from dozens of countries following a February Supreme Court ruling involving earlier tariffs.
Morial said the six proposals are intended to shift the national economic debate toward the expenses families encounter in their daily lives.
“No one who works full time should live in poverty,” Morial wrote in outlining the wage proposal.
The affordability blueprint also reflects a broader argument that government policy should be judged not simply by economic growth or financial markets, but by whether families can afford necessities including housing, food, health care and utilities.
Morial is urging lawmakers to take up the proposals as Congress and voters increasingly turn their attention toward the November midterm elections.
