There's really no way to push an auto layout right to left?

I’ve looked everywhere, and it doesn’t seem like there is a way to have an auto layout with text expand on the left side, rather than the right side. This seems like a very basic functionality, so I’m kind of surprised. Is this not possible? In my use case, I just have text with a background. I want the background to expand to the left with the text when it changes, not the right side. Any ideas? Thanks!