The rule, exactly. Before an election each citizen chooses: to vote — or to take a payment and not vote in that election. The payment is a percentage of the median income, set by referendum; there is no fixed sum. One ballot is one vote, with no multiplier in the count; the vote is amplified only in that each ballot's share grows as others step out. The budget pays under law; a candidate never pays. Only a referendum of all citizens — simple majority, no quorum — introduces, changes or repeals the rule.

The protocol has been introduced nowhere and no pilot has been run: shares, turnout and outcome figures in the chapters are estimates, and the protocol promises nobody an election victory. If a chapter says otherwise, Exact Answers and the Charter are correct. For a candidate: ten questions and ten steps. For a citizen, a mayor, a finance officer, a donor, a journalist, a scholar, a lawyer: answers by role. Everything in force in one file: llms-full.txt.

58. The Affordability Crisis of 2026: AB-EXIT as an Answer to the Cost of Living (US Case)¶

Chapter: 09 — USA File version: v1 Date: 2026-06-13 Status: Done — a new subsection of chapter 9 Source: the valuable part of a dialogue with Gemini (the Polymarket scheme and fake videos — rejected, see §43); 2026 empirics — Harvard JCHS Rental Housing 2026, Urban Institute, CAP, Fast Company, Fortune.

Placement: a subsection of chapter 09 (USA). File number 09_058 — the next free through-number (after the placeholder 057); on rebuild/universalisation it may be renumbered within the chapter 9 block. The content is US-specific, so it lives in Part IV rather than in the universal chapters 1–8.

How to read this chapter (note of 02.10.2026). The text contains wording that is easy to misread: sums and formulas with coefficients are worked examples: the size of the payment is set as a percentage of the median income approved by referendum; a "reversible" choice means "at the next election": within one election exit is final. The exact-answers sheet 1d and the charter 048m are in force.

58.1. Why this subsection appeared right now¶

By 2026 "affordability" (the accessibility of living) stopped being one topic among others — it became the main axis of American politics. This changes the launch tactics of AB-EXIT in the USA: the dividend now reads not as "a strange payment for non-turnout" but as direct cost-of-living relief — in the language that already dominates the public agenda.

The 2026 picture (USA):

Average monthly rent — about $1,995 (February 2026). In some large markets fewer than a third of renters consider rent affordable (Miami ~32 %, Los Angeles ~34 %).
22.7 million renter households are cost-burdened (pay >30 % of income on housing), of them 12.1 million severely (>50 %).
The median house price — just over $400,000, ≈ 5 annual median wages; prices rose roughly 45 % since 2020 — twice as fast as usual.
Tariff policy raised retail prices: the average family paid more than $1,700 extra between February 2025 and January 2026.

Against this background "the cost of living" is the consensus nerve of both left and right.

58.2. The dividend as tangible cost-of-living relief¶

The civic dividend for the USA (≈ $676 at a median of ~$45,000, see §52 "$676 Challenge") in the conditions of 2026 stops being an abstraction. $676 is:

roughly a third of the average monthly rent, or
the family's whole tariff "tax" for the year ($1,700) minus two-thirds, or
the difference between "making ends meet" and "not making them" for a significant part of the 12.1 million severely cost-burdened households.

And the main thing — it is a choice, not a handout: the citizen either takes money that really helps with rent and bills, or stays to vote with strengthened weight. In an affordability crisis both options are valuable: some need liquidity now, others a lever to influence housing and tax policy.

58.3. The structural argument: whom the crisis mobilises¶

The affordability crisis is the fuel of populism. The squeezed but politically apathetic mass (those very cost-burdened people who work two shifts and do not reach the polling station) is exactly the group the populist lifts with fear and unfulfillable promises to "fix everything". In the old system their vote either dissolves or is mobilised by demagogy.

AB-EXIT converts this pressure in two ways:

Exit with compensation. The apathetic person tired of prices receives $676 — a material answer to his main problem, without promises that will not be kept anyway. There is nothing left to manipulate his vote with through the fear of high prices — he is no longer in the game, and he is not aggrieved.
A vote with amplification. The one whom housing and prices have hit so hard that he is ready to give up $676 for influence stays — and his vote now decides, because the apathetic have left. This shifts the electorate towards people who really care about budget and housing policy and who come to bargain (see the manifesto §43: "shareholders with a price list", not "a crowd with slogans").

That is, AB-EXIT does not "distract" from the crisis with money — it turns the crisis from a resource of demagogues into a resource of constructive bargaining over housing, taxes and the cost of living.

58.4. Removing the "vote-buying" accusation — in a crisis it is at its weakest¶

The standard objection "this is bribing the voter" loses force in the affordability context: a society that already discusses direct payments, rent control, tax credits and tariff cuts as legitimate tools easily accepts the dividend as one more cost-of-living relief measure — with the difference that the payment is for exit, not for the vote, the choice is reversible every cycle, and the offer is universal. This is exactly the frame of §43 (voluntary, reversible, market) and §76 (compare with reality, not with the ideal): in the reality of 2026 the cost-burdened voter now has zero, and AB-EXIT adds two options (money or a strengthened vote).

58.5. Empirical confirmation: affordability already wins elections¶

Mamdani's victory in the New York mayoral race on an affordability platform (mentioned in §76 as an example of bypassing the elites at record turnout) shows: affordability is a mobilising consensus theme on which candidates win despite the establishment. AB-EXIT rides the same wave, but offers not another promise but a structural mechanism giving everyone a direct benefit here and now.

58.6. The link with UBI and why AB-EXIT is stronger in this context¶

In an affordability crisis a comparison with UBI is natural. The difference (in detail §20): the AB-EXIT dividend is not unconditional — it is tied to the electoral choice of the cycle, so it does not carry the classic UBI criticism about disincentivising work and does not require a permanent budget for the whole population. It gives the same cost-of-living relief UBI promises, but in a frame against which critics have no "it will teach people not to work" argument: you receive money because in this cycle you yielded your vote, not just like that.

§20 — AB-EXIT is stronger than UBI
§43 — The philosophical manifesto: a fair, voluntary, reversible market qualification
§52 — $676 Challenge (the dividend calculation for the USA)
§76 — Answers to critics (the Nirvana Fallacy; bypassing the elites; Mamdani/RCV as precedents)

Subsection written 2026-06-13 (Cowork). Source of the idea — a dialogue with Gemini; the elements rejected from that same dialogue (the Polymarket scheme, fake videos) are NOT included here — they contradict the protocol's verification basis. The 2026 figures — check against the primary sources (Harvard JCHS, Urban Institute) before public use.