Ideas Move Change

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

“This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things” is the first campaign from mBOLDen Action, our new public education platform dedicated to shining a light on the systemic forces that shape daily life.

This campaign makes the connection between policy choices and kitchen table costs impossible to miss. We are starting with the affordability crisis because it is the most immediate receipt of how our current values are failing us, but the work won’t stop there.

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Experience Our Safety Net Simulator

The Safety Net Simulator is an interactive tool that walks users through the real-life tradeoffs families face when essential programs that help meet basic needs — like SNAP, Medicaid, housing support, and tax credits — are cut, restricted, or allowed to expire. You step into a household’s situation and make the decisions yourself. Cut food or healthcare? Fall behind on rent or skip the doctor? Grounded in public federal data and real program rules, the simulator models how recent policy changes affect household stability. Our goal is simple: make policy personal by asking you to step into someone else’s shoes. Take the simulation and see how stability shifts when you’re forced to make the hard choices.

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Watch the replay: State(s) of the Union — For the People, Not Billionaires

Working families know the real state of the union — they’re living it.

Step into our Safety Net Simulator and take a seat at the kitchen table with families making impossible choices just to survive — driven by the Trump administration’s gutting of the safety net and a policy agenda that’s deepening an affordability crisis for tens of millions of households.

Then watch the replay of Families Over Billionaires’ “State(s) of the Union: For the People, Not Billionaires,” featuring stories from families across the country.

ORIGINALLY STREAMED MONDAY, FEB. 23 Explore the Safety Net Simulator