Anonymous #1 2w

Income is up. What rights have deteriorated and how do they impact home prices? How is corporate greed increasing the price of housing? Was greed not present in the past?

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Anonymous OP 2w

The wage gap is also up, inflation is up, the cost of living has ballooned. Wages are going up, but they’re not going up fast enough to meet the cost of living. The federal minimum wage is far below the minimum living wage – which is in the $20-$30 per hour range on average, it is definitely not $7.25.

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Anonymous #3 2w

Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/livable-wage-by-state

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Anonymous #3 2w

That graph is adjusted for inflation which is effectively the cost of living. Far fewer people are earning minimum wage today

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Anonymous #3 2w

In many ways the median worker lives like the 1% did 100 years ago.

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Anonymous OP 2w

This still doesn’t take into account of other expenses – health insurance, car insurance, utility bills, etc. On top of that, the average home price has gone as far up as $442,600 in Q2 of 2022, and remains above $400k at $410,800 in Q2 of 2025. For most people, buying a house isn’t feasible off of just 6.3 years of income.

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Anonymous #3 2w

Do you what measure does take those into account? CPI. When you adjust for cost of living using CPI, the median income is up.

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Anonymous #3 2w

The average home is also much larger and higher quality today. Housing prices are an issue, but the issue is driven by a lack of supply. This is largely because of zoning, price controls, and other bad policies that discourage construction.

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Anonymous OP 2w

The median income is up, but again, many of our expenses are also all up. Groceries are up, utilities are up, rent is still up, healthcare costs are up. It doesn’t matter if our income goes up if the cost of living continues to outpace that, it still means many Americans are struggling to get by.

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Anonymous OP 2w

Bad policies like sweeping tariffs on imported goods that are necessary for housing construction or deportations of undocumented workers that have committed no violent crimes leaving a shortage of workers are what prevent the U.S. from raising the supply of housing adequately.

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Anonymous #3 2w

I’m trying to explain that the CPI is a measure of our expenses. The graph is showing that income is increasing *at a faster rate* than cost of living.

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Anonymous #3 2w

Tariffs and deportations are absolutely having negative impacts on the supply of housing, but those are new policies. The stagnation in housing construction predates trump.

1

Anonymous OP 2w

It’s amazing how many people respond to a graph showing real income and respond that “prices have gone up”, but I do wonder if the improvements are as dramatic for entry level positions. That could explain why Gen Z feels so dissatisfied with the economy. I think the other reason is we just buy more “extra” stuff now

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Anonymous canesfan 2w

Gen Z’s doing fine overall, but the areas where we are struggling (housing, college, inflation) are very noticeable and they suck. Every generation feels pain when they go from their parents’ income to starting at zero.

1