The real cost of socialism to your family
The Democratic Socialists of America’s 2026 Workers Deserve More program includes a range of policy commitments, among them the eight major policies highlighted here. Seven of them would add about $49 trillion to federal deficits over ten years. That is roughly $355,000 for every American household.
10-year Cost
Per American Household
If taxes go up
Less take-home pay per worker each year.
If the government borrows
Mortgage rates, or higher. Prices more than double.
The price tag
The budget cost is only part of the damage
Switch between what the programs add to federal deficits and what the economy loses when they are paid for with taxes. Tap any piece to jump to that policy.
Paying for it
Every way of paying for it hurts
About $4.9 trillion a year would have to be financed either by borrowing or by tax increases. CEA estimated the effects of both paths. Both are dramatically costly for Americans’ pocketbooks.
Borrowing it
Add about $4.9 trillion to the deficit every year.
Also in the report
What $100 of today’s prices would become
Taxing it
Raise taxes enough to cover about $4.9 trillion a year.
Also in the report
For every $100 of take-home pay per hour today
What it does to the country
Borrowing drives up rates and prices.
Taxes shrink the whole economy relative to baseline.
However it is paid for, it costs jobs, housing and savings.
Estimates for the whole country, from CEA’s The Real Cost of Socialism in America.
Families
What it would mean for American families
Drag the slider to see what the report’s findings would mean for your budget.
Today
take-home pay a year
Under the DSA agenda
take-home pay a year
For every family
Homebuyers, if it’s borrowed
30-year mortgage rates
Shoppers, if it’s borrowed
to buy in ten years what costs $100 today
Renters
more spent searching per occupied unit
Gas-heated homes
more a year to heat, up at least 16.3%
Median full-time worker
a year in real wages, from the wealth tax
Median 401(k)
from the wealth tax
Public safety
The public-safety plan has a cost measured in lives
DSA calls for abolishing the police and the prison system. Its policies to reduce police staffing, reclassify felonies as misdemeanors, and shorten sentences are associated with higher crime where they have been implemented.
Each additional crime per 100 people a year is associated with
2.4 fewer years of life expectancy if the crime is violent
How CEA measured this
These are the result of fixed-effect regressions. The public-safety pillar is not scored in fiscal terms; it is assessed through its effect on crime and the social and economic costs that follow.
The proposals
The eight DSA policies
What each one promises, what it costs, and what else it changes. Open any row for the details.
How these numbers were calculated
The fiscal table behind the figures on this page.
Table ES-1 and assumptions
Table ES-1: ten-year fiscal effects
| Policy, 2027–2036 | Trillions, 2026 dollars |
|---|
Positive values are revenue; negative values are costs. Student debt covers tuition at all institutions (−$2.1 trillion if public institutions only). Open borders is the midpoint of a $440–613 billion range. The Green New Deal figure is forgone tax revenue. The 32-hour workweek is −$1.4 trillion including state and local revenue and unemployment insurance. Wealth-tax revenue is the sponsors’ estimate, before a $449 billion loss of income-tax receipts.
Public safety
Each additional crime per 100 people per year is associated with 110 fewer days of life expectancy (2.4 years if violent), 173 more deaths per 100,000 (violent crime), a 0.73-point rise in child poverty, a 1.4 to 1.6 point decline in children who out-earn their parents, and a $112.90 increase in annual employee-plus-one premiums.