Comment by iAMkenough

This doesn't explain it all, but worth considering.

As the cost of living increases, so does the cost of providing public safety workers and their union-guaranteed pensions and benefits. In most cities, public safety eats up a large chunk of the operating/general fund budget (in Austin it's 71.2%)[1, pg. 30], and reducing public safety budgets kills your representative's clout. You yourself can advocate for lower hiring rates or pay and pensions if that's a concern. Any new hire comes with long-term costs for your local government, even after they've left service.

Extracurricular services are highly visible and therefore highly defended by the advocates that claim they reduce crime (by providing structure to youth with nothing else to do, for example). Representatives are typically replaced with those that defend those highly-visible services. They will instead reduce less-visible support services (like IT) that make public safety more efficient/effective.

Since you can't outlaw homelessness, citizens that complain about homeless activity motivate local governments to provide more services that make homelessness less visible/likely. Without those services, public safety budgets need to increase to address more desperation on the streets.

As the population ages and needs more medical care they can't afford, demand for EMS and senior services increases. I've seen arguments to freeze or eliminate property taxes for seniors, but balanced budgets mean non-seniors have to pay more to cover their service costs unless the local government finds additional revenue (fees, fines, more local sales tax that increases living costs, etc.)

You can outlaw abortion for unfit parents, but that also likely creates more welfare service demand over time.

To me, private businesses not increasing wages to meet a standard cost of living means an increase for demand of welfare and public safety services. Local governments can attempt to hold private businesses to a higher tax burden, but are usually preempted by state law in Republican-led states. Your local government has no control over that and has to respond somehow.

To me, the frustration is best placed with private businesses that can afford to provide for their workforce, but instead rely on welfare services to give their workers what they need to survive, so that executive officers can earn more and deliver more to their investors. ~55% of households in the U.S. earn less than $100,000 per year (before taxes). [2]

[1] https://austin.widen.net/s/x8q5hmnwtw/fy-2026-27-city-of-aus...

[2] https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2024.S1901