On April 16, Jared Bernstein delivered the 2026 Phillip Gamble Memorial Lecture in the Bowker Auditorium at the University of Massachusetts. Bernstein discussed the political economy of affordability in the United States and necessary policy alterations.
Bernstein, who previously served as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under former President Joe Biden, was also a key policy advisor in the development of the American Rescue Plan Act, legislation aimed at post-pandemic economic recovery.
To begin his lecture, Bernstein expressed his disappointment with the economic agenda of President Donald Trump’s administration. Berstein claimed that Trump’s policies are negatively affecting financial accessibility within the economy, and that the “sweeping tariffs, deportations, deep budget cuts…are all actively pushing the wrong way on affordability.”
Bernstein’s lecture outlined his take on an affordability agenda (AA) for the country, which was broken down into three critical components: enhancing the United States’ supply, competition policy and the addition of direct subsidies.
“Removing procedural sludge that makes building too slow and expensive will increase supply and lower the costs of goods and services,” Bernstein said. “A key part of the AA is simply pushing out supply curves and reducing any barriers that constrain such movements.”
Bernstein’s AA also described the advantages of adding direct subsidies, which can lower out-of-pocket costs for consumers and support struggling industries.
“In the cases of housing, health care and childcare, we cannot count on removing friction or inducing barriers to ease affordability constraints,” Bernstein said. “Direct subsidies are needed for low and middle-income households to afford these key aspects of family budgets.”
Maddie Hopwood, a freshman management major who attended the event, noted how inflation has personally affected her within the past year.
“I’ve noticed that prices have gone up which can be really frustrating, but it’s just something that I’ve come to acknowledge,” Hopwood said. “Even at UMass, it’s so expensive when it comes to using dining dollars to just get a coffee, or something at Blue Wall.”
After discussing the affordability agenda, Bernstein highlighted several affordability struggles within family budgets across the United States, including childcare.
“Childcare is an essential and often unaffordable component of many family budgets,” Bernstein said. “In the most expensive places across America, childcare can cost more than $20,000 a year, a burden seen as relatively high in young families.”
Bernstein also claimed that about a quarter of homeowners and half of renters spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2023, heightening affordability concerns.
Rachel Tappe, a freshman comparative literature and resource economics major, also attended the event. She appreciated that the presentation was “not overly optimistic” about the state of the economy.
“Absolutely no one I know feels like our economy is looking positive, especially in our demographic, and I appreciated having this acknowledged by data,” Tappe said.
Bernstein closed his lecture by expressing his doubt at the Trump administration’s ability to implement an affordability agenda.
“Our nation faces an existential crisis and is under a threat from an unchecked authoritative regime, and they’re very good at it. But their fatal flaw is that they have neither the policy chops nor the ideology to implement an AA,” Bernstein said.
The Phillip Gamble Memorial Lecture is sponsored by the University of Massachusetts Department of Economics. The endowment that supports the annual lecture was founded by alumnus Israel Rogosa in memory of Gamble, a former economics faculty member.
Gabrielle Pullen can be reached at [email protected].
