The True Cost of Socialists' Promised "Freebies"

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has exploded into the political discussion throughout the 2026 election cycle with the election of Mayor Zohran Mamdani in NYC and numerous DSA challengers staging successful primaries against incumbent Democratic party Representatives. Although the DSA is not the first group of radical socialists within the United States, its presence is becoming mainstream, well-funded and politically savvy, with new chapters popping up in all fifty states, garnering both admiration and fear from the Democratic Party which the DSA seeks to destroy. On July 14, 2026, the DSA introduced its true colors, unveiling its political platform which it refers to as the “Worker’s Deserve More Agenda.”

The policy platform promises higher wages for workers, a shorter work week, further unionization and the end of capitalism in the United States. Despite the glitzy language in the promises made by the DSA, this platform would crush the American Dream for all and end American economic dominance.

An Unsustainable Choice

While the DSA’s agenda looks like a utopia on paper for Americans, its plans are completely unsustainable for the American economy. The platform includes not only Democratic calls for the expansion of universal healthcare and further expansions of unionization of the work force, but calls even further for the publicization of other social safety nets, the restructuring of the work force, and abolishment or control of certain types of bills such as rent, mortgages, and child-care. However, one thing that the socialist agenda fails to mention is how these structural changes would be paid for outside of the general term of “aggressive wealth taxes” and other unspecified tax increases.

In 2018 alone, under the guise of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, researchers at the Congressional Budget Office projected that policies proposed by DSA United States Senator Bernie Sanders and then-New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would significantly increase government spending, with expected spending exceeding $40 trillion in the first ten years and $218 trillion over the next three decades. To fund the government spending, the estimates projected that tax revenue would have to heftily increase. In 2019, the Committee For A Responsible Federal Budget produced a comparative review of liberal and conservative sources – all which parked new federal government costs of universal health care alone in the double-digit trillions of dollars.

The 32-Hour Workweek, a Disaster for the Labor Force

Furthering their dreamy vision of work, the DSA calls for a mandatory implementation to a 32-hour work week, akin to four days of work, for all employees at the same salary and with paid family leave and full benefits. While many would love to have a day off, and the rise of technology in certain industries may allow for a reduction in the number of hours an individual may have to work to achieve the same results, other industries, including the average mom-and-pop shop is not benefiting from those same technologies. Also, other industries that rely on 24/7 labor forces -- such as hospitals and emergency service personnel and providers -- would be forced into hiring further staff in many fields that are already short-staffed.

Again, this proposal merits a look at the math. A mandated 32-hour work week, with workers being entitled to their full forty-hour same salaries, is the de-facto 25-percent increase in labor costs for every employer. A cost this steep would almost certainly require many employers to pass this expense straight to all consumers. Furthermore, those businesses that need extended hours coverage to keep the business open and earning money (retailers, emergency services, and healthcare, amongst many others), would then be required to either bear the additional costs of advertising, onboarding and training new employees, a process which can run companies thousands to tens-of-thousands of dollars per employee, or eat the additional time-and-a-half pay for each additional hour of an employee works.

In the case of independent businesses, and even some major employers with smaller profit margins such as retailers, these new expenses could force employers to instead cut the businesses hours and, in turn, reduce their work forces, leading to a unstable job market for millions of Americans.

Arming Big Labor Through Unionization

The clearly stated goal of the DSA is to end capitalism in the United States, but what does that truly mean for Americans? According to the DSA, capitalism is seen as “a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us” that must be replaced by having “workers” pull the levers of the economy via further unionization of the work force. Instead of reaching the DSA’s utopian goals, furthering forced unionization would have opposite outcomes: driving union costs even higher, costs that are directly removed from the pockets of the employees who the propaganda of the movement states they are protecting, often with little to no say in how much dues are.

The Cost of Free Everything Is Not Free

Taking straight aim at the foundations of the American Dream is the real goal of the socialists’ agenda. We’ll be spending some time taking a really close look at how much the DSA’s policy will really cost … and who will pay for all of the agenda’s “free stuff.”