Name: Live podcast: The affordability gap | Econ World
Uploaded: 2026-04-01T17:05:08.000Z
Duration: 42 min 6 s
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Hey there, I've got a cracking live show for you this week—me and Captain America out to solve the affordability crisis.

現在進行形

Okay, not quite, but I am talking about the affordability gap, and Chris Evans is on stage with me.

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You see, in between starring in Avenger movies, Evans is also one of the founders of A Starting Point, an online platform where Americans can hear directly from their elected officials.

And Reuters and A Starting Point recently co-hosted an event at Reuters offices in New York on the affordability gap facing Gen Z.

I talked to New York City Council member Chiyo Se and White House economist Aaron Hedland about rent freezes, wealth taxes, and whether a college education is still worth it.

And along with Chris and his A Starting Point co-founder Mark Cassen, we hear from New York students themselves about the pressure they're under, so stay tuned for a lively one.

I'm Carmel Crimmins, and this is Reuters Econ World.

Every week we go deep on the economic principles and ideas driving the biggest news around the world.

On this week's show: the affordability gap, live from New York.

Uh, being that we are at Reuters, we want to bring up one of Reuters' own, Ms.

She has a podcast called the Reuters Econ World Podcast.

She's going to come on up, and she's going to talk to some elected officials and some policymakers and get into some more interesting conversations and deeper than Chris and I possibly feel qualified for.

And we'll see you back, and we'll help facilitate some of your questions when you get into it.

Hello everyone, are we all suitably depressed about the future now after those comments?

All right, this is the solutions part of the show.

We're going to talk about solutions to the affordability gap, and to do that I'm going to be joined on stage by Chiyo Se, who is the council member for Northern Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy here in New York City.

We're going to bring the positive vibes, Chiyi, okay?

I know we're solving affordability gap, right?

So you have the world's most famous mayor, right?

He has made affordability the rallying cry for this city, and I think the slogans have gone all around the world, right?

Because I went out for lunch yesterday, and it cost me $17 for a sandwich and a drink.

So Zoran has been in office for 3 months now, so I hope we have a little bit more patience.

I do believe we are in the era of affordability maxing in New York City, and I think that Zoran is taking a very proactive approach in at least making a dent in some of the affordability issues that we are seeing in New York.

One of the ones that I care about significantly is building more housing to lower rents in New York City.

Zoran surprised a lot of pundits who criticize the socialists for not being pro-development and pro-housing.

As a socialist myself, who is pro-housing and pro-development, we are super excited about building new housing of all different ranges to put a dent again in the rising rents that we're seeing across the five boroughs.

But building new houses, that takes a long time, right?

It's going to take a few years for that to make any sort of impact.

Talk to us about the more short-term solutions that you've got up your sleeve that you'd like to see implemented.

So I'm working on several bills right now, and I know that the new administration in New York City is really taking care, or at least a priority, on eliminating junk fees across the board.

There's a bill that I'm currently working on that is aiming to regulate Uber surge pricing within New York City.

These are day-to-day issues that New Yorkers are dealing with that impacts their pockets, especially around the algorithm that some of these rideshare apps use in charging people fees during surge pricing.

These are issues that myself, as well as this administration, seriously want to take on, and again, alleviating some of the weight and pressures that exist in New Yorkers' wallets.

In addition to that, I know that the mayor has empowered the Department of Consumer and Worker Protections here in New York City.

Unlike anything we've ever seen before, they've been announcing lawsuit settlements, I think, on a weekly basis and trying to identify where different tech companies, more specifically, are forcing junk fees on New Yorkers.

I think they just announced recently something around DoorDash and Taco Bell being private institutions that have, again, been taking advantage of consumers and workers alike.

Talk to us about freezing the rent, right?

Because that is something that you guys want to introduce.

But even if are we going to see that this year?

So the mayor, I think, just came out with a video today.

Every single mayor in New York City appoints a rent guidelines board, and this is a board filled with appointments of individuals who vote on how much rent goes up each year for New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized units.

Now, nearly half of all New Yorkers live in a rent-stabilized apartment, and the rent guidelines board can either vote for rents to go up every single year, they can vote for rents to be stabilized every single year, or they can vote for rent rollbacks.

While this rent freeze that the mayor has been speaking about during his campaign, and I believe will complete his promise now that he is the mayor, isn't something that will impact every single New Yorker.

But I think where the mayor is moving in the direction, and I think I touched on this, and this is something I care about as well, is that the answer to our housing crisis is not just freezing the rent.

It's not just regulating broker fees in New York City, which I was proud to do a couple of years ago, but it's saying yes and to the housing crisis.

And while freezing the rent is something that the mayor and the rent guidelines board will be able to do in the next coming months, and I'm pretty positive that they will be able to do that, I know that there are other priorities that they are carrying out throughout their administration.

Because even freezing the rent, it would be at a super high level, right?

The median rent in Manhattan right now is $5,000.

I mean, you would need to be earning $180,000 a year in order to be able to handle that kind of comfortably.

And that's why another priority that we are working on in the city council, on the other side of city halls, we're trying to activate all city-owned land to build 100% truly affordable housing.

So usually when a developer is building on private land, they can build as of right, which means they're building market-rate housing.

And I'm not going to demonize all market-rate housing, right?

New Yorkers pay various different ranges of rent, but in this affordability crisis, we need to see rents for people making moderate to low income.

And that's why the city council is prioritizing affordable development on city-owned land.

I approved a large rezoning last year down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn where we voted on this plot of land.

It was a parking lot which offered zero units of housing, and we negotiated a deal with the former mayor.

Thank God he's gone, but we negotiated a great deal with him where we are now building 100% truly affordable housing where people making 0 to $50,000 a year will be able to apply and find housing within that development.

And yesterday, just yesterday, I stood at a press conference with the new mayor where he announced that they're fast-tracking all housing that's being built on city-owned land so that it does not take two years and hopefully takes a quicker amount of time to get people in those units.

But you do need the landlords to work with you, right?

I mean, and some of the policies are putting, as we say back home, the fear of God up some people, right?

And there is a risk, isn't there, say, for instance, with a rent freeze, that you may end up reducing the supply, actually?

I mean, that happened back in San Francisco in 1994.

They extended rent controls, and the supply of affordable housing went down.

I mean, I think that concern should absolutely be valid for 5, 6, maybe 10 years ago.

Again, we are in the era of affordability maxing, and there's more of a Yimbee mindset that a lot of our politicians have in New York City, where we're not just, again, freezing the rent, but we are also supporting various types of housing that is being built within the city.

Again, this mayor has taken a very pro-development stance, which I believe will counterbalance that rent freeze that he promised during the campaign.

What about taxing the rich, taxing the millionaires and the billionaires?

So you hear a lot of talk, and this happened especially during Zoran's campaign, that the rich were going to flee after he got elected.

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