Not true in every metro, there's a tool you can play with to show you the wage-to-house-price multiple: https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1221828310000271361 ht

Not true in every metro, there's a tool you can play with to show you the wage-to-house-price multiple: https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1221828310000271361 https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1221828310000271361 Major metros where the multiplier has largely stayed the same: Columbus 1984: 2.47x 2017: 2.97x Omaha 1984: 2.3x 2017: 2.77x Little Rock 1984: 2.85x 2017: 2.75x Kansas City 1984: 2.64x 2017: 3.01x Pittsburgh 1984: 2.16x 2017: 2.42x Minneapolis 1984: 2.64x 2017: 3.34x Houston 1984: 2.66x 2017: 3.68x Chicago: 1984: 2.45x 2017: 3.49x Also, inflation adjustments take into account the increase in prices of all goods & services, including housing -> https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2019.txt https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2019.txt. So even if housing costs have gone up more than overall inflation, other things have fallen, and OVERALL inflation rate is the best rough measure of "cost of living". There's disagreement over which indexes are better (based on how they weight different expenses); CPI-U vs CPI-W give different importance to different goods & services. Importantly, the inflation-adjusted incomes have gone up regardless of which index you choose to use.