White House Economists Price the DSA Platform at $49 Trillion, About $355,000 Per Household

The White House Council of Economic Advisers has put a price tag on the Democratic Socialists of America’s agenda, and it is staggering: roughly $49 trillion over ten years. In a report titled “The Real Cost of Socialism in America,” reported by the New York Post on October 1, the CEA concluded that the bill “amounts to approximately $355,000 per American household.”

The council scored eight policy pillars from the DSA’s 2026 program, “Workers Deserve More,” which the group released in July. Seven could be measured against the federal budget. The remaining one, the DSA’s public-safety platform, was analyzed for its effects on crime rather than its fiscal cost.

Where the $49 trillion comes from

According to the CEA’s summary table, covering 2027 through 2036 in constant 2026 dollars, the net cost is $48.90 trillion, though the report’s summary describes the total as “more than $49 trillion.” Nearly all of it is one program:

• Medicare for All: $47.41 trillion
• Student debt cancellation and free college tuition: $3.60 trillion
• A 32-hour workweek mandate: $918 billion
• Open borders and amnesty for illegal immigrants: $530 billion (the midpoint of a $440 billion to $613 billion range)
• The Green New Deal: $370 billion
• Universal rent control: about $16 billion

The only item that brings money in is the DSA’s proposed 5 percent annual wealth tax on billionaires, which the CEA credited with $3.94 trillion over ten years, using the sponsors’ own revenue estimate. Before that offset, the gross cost of the agenda tops $52.8 trillion.

The council noted the burden “would be financed either by debt or by tax increases on the American people,” and it scored both.

Borrow it or tax it, the result is ugly

If the agenda were financed by borrowing, the CEA estimates interest rates on 10-year Treasury bonds would rise by 5.8 percentage points, likely breaking 10 percent, with 30-year mortgage rates potentially above 12 percent. It projects double-digit inflation, with cumulative excess inflation of 130 to 160 percentage points over a decade.

If it were financed by raising taxes, the council estimates real GDP would fall by 14.6 percent permanently and after-tax hourly wages for the average household would shrink by 28.4 percent, an average of $22,000 in lost annual income.

Even the wealth tax has a bill

The one revenue raiser comes with its own costs. The CEA estimates the billionaire wealth tax would “lower real wages by about 2.5 percent—roughly $1,700 a year for the median full-time worker (in 2026 dollars)—and reduce employment by roughly 1.1 million workers by the tenth year.” It projects stock market capitalization would fall by about $3.8 trillion, “equivalent to a $2,100 loss for the median 401(k) retirement account.”

That is the part socialists never want to talk about. Capital is not a pile of gold in a vault. It is factories, equipment and the retirement savings of ordinary workers. Tax it away and the people who pay are the ones who draw a paycheck.

What wasn’t scored

The New York Post noted that the estimate did not score the costs or savings of every DSA plank, including moving toward abolishing police and prisons, defunding the Department of War and abolishing the Senate. On public safety, the CEA instead estimated the social cost of higher crime, finding that 1,000 additional crimes per 100,000 people per year are associated with a 110-day decrease in average life expectancy and 730 more children in poverty per 100,000 children.

Why now

The report lands as DSA-backed candidates gain ground. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won last year with DSA support, and the Post reported that DSA-backed candidates made surprising gains in primaries across the country. Republicans are making the group’s rise a midterm issue.

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales put it bluntly: “The Democrats’ embrace of communism and socialism is not only an existential threat to our nation’s fundamental values, but also a complete disaster for American families who would pay trillions to fund these out-of-touch ideas.” The DSA did not immediately respond to the Post’s request for comment.

These are the administration’s own estimates, and supporters of single-payer health care argue it would save individuals money by replacing private premiums. But the DSA wrote this platform, and the CEA took it at its word. For years, the socialist left has sold its agenda one slogan at a time, free college here, free health care there, without ever adding up the receipt.

The DSA finally has a price tag, $355,000 per household, and voters should get to see it before they vote, not after.

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