20 ms·

Ketchum, Idaho, Has Plenty of Available Jobs, but Workers Can’t Afford Housing

89 points by erehweb 5y ago

tengbretson 5y ago
> Ketchum is facing a cascading housing crisis caused by a rush of new residents during the Covid-19 pandemic, growing demand for workers during the economic boom that has followed > the economic boom that has followed Is this what we're calling it?
- murph-almighty 5y ago
  There are jobs, plenty of jobs, and yet somehow no one filling those roles. Never mind that they're underpaying... or that we lost half a million people in the labor force...
  - nvahalik 5y ago
    > or that we lost half a million people in the labor force... This is not true, unless you're considering all ages in the labor force. Stats from this page[0] seem to indicate that COVID-related deaths are <120k for people under age 65. That's quite a bit less than "half a million people" in the labor force. (Assuming, like I am that people tend to retire at 65.) [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...
    - kube-system 5y ago
      I think they meant “lost” as in “not participating” not “lost” as in “dead” I haven’t looked up the change in labor force stats myself, but they’re not simply the total number of living people in a certain age bracket. There are plenty of people between 18-65 who aren’t part of the labor force: i.e: disabled, retired, stay-at-home, incarcerated, etc.
  - amiga 5y ago
    "Pay more" does seem like the best response here
    - seafoam 5y ago
      That is not how this works. Instead : capacity gets curtailed, prices are raised, and what people can afford goes down.
  - newfriend 5y ago
    Or that the government is paying people who don't want to work.
- war1025 5y ago
  The town is having an economic boom because it saw a large influx of remote workers this past year. Those workers require goods and services, which leads to job openings to fill the demand. It may come as a surprise to people in large cities, but the vast majority of the country (geographically) was pretty much business as usual from summer 2020 onward.
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  What would you call it? Q1 2021 - 6.4% growth [0] Q2 2021 - 7.8% growth [1] [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/188185/percent-change-from-preceding-period-in-real-gdp-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/188185/percent-change-fr... [1] https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow
  - tengbretson 5y ago
    Isn't GDP measured in dollars?
    - long_time_gone 5y ago
      Yes, the US economy is measured in US dollars. If you are trying to make a cryptic remark about inflation, I've linked some information on how GDP is measured. Specifically, "The nation's gross domestic product totals trillions of dollars. Most often, the number you'll hear people refer to as "GDP" is a percentage. That's the rate of change in real GDP from the previous quarter or year. "Real" or "chained" GDP numbers have been adjusted to remove the effects of inflation over time, so different periods can be compared." [0] https://www.bea.gov/resources/learning-center/what-to-know-gdp https://www.bea.gov/resources/learning-center/what-to-know-g...
Blackthorn 5y ago
How can they suggest those tents would be "temporary" with a straight face? If you're not planning on building more houses except those tents, how do you expect anyone to move out of the tents into houses?
- soco 5y ago
  They're probably hoping the tents people will get disgusted and leave town so everything will be like in ye olden days.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
yardie 5y ago
This reminds me of housing problems in boom towns. People move to the towns because reasons and overwhelm the basically static housing supply. Towns are reluctant to build out infrastructure because it's expensive and time consuming and they aren't sure how long the boom will last. Developers are reluctant to build because they don't want to take the risk of building out more housing and then just as they open everyone leaves, again. People are spending their summers, remotely working, in a winter resort town. But what happens when the winter comes and the town isn't so fun anymore. Or when the SV office wants you closer to home. Will some of these remote working migrants be willing to take on a pre-construction loan and 30 year mortgage? Probably not, which is why housing is the way it is. Everyone is grazing and trying to figure out this new era of labour.
- Izikiel43 5y ago
  > winter resort town > what happens when the winter comes and the town isn't so fun anymore? You learn how to ski, then you have fun in the winter.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
This country is rapidly approaching a serious precipice. The decades of stagnating wage growth is catching up with the pace of modern life. Corporations run the country and governments don't give two shits. I've always been an optimist, living in the best days of civilization etc, but it gets harder and harder every day to continue thinking this.
- rejectedandsad 5y ago
  I feel like most of these problems can be solved by increasing density and having fast transportation links. We are better off having Chinese ghost cities than low density superstar cities where the average worker has to commute hours thanks to a woke left fear of “gentrification”. Build, baby build.
  - raunak 5y ago
    Does a country really benefit from a majority of its people living in hyperdense incredibly urbanized cities, stacked on top of another in 200 sq. ft apartments? Gotta be a better solution - I of course don’t know what it is, but just my 2¢
    - rejectedandsad 5y ago
      You’re free to not live in cities. But even suburbs don’t build like they did in the 70s.
    - ChrisLTD 5y ago
      Can we compromise at 750 square feet?
  - majormajor 5y ago
    If we thought it was worth forcing people to move the problem could be solved without creating a bunch of new ghost cities, there's already a LOT of undesirable cheap places. But forced relocation is not something you're gonna get many people on board with.
clusterhacks 5y ago
My brother-in-law left Ketchum several years ago to move to Boise specifically because housing costs are too high for middle-class wage earners. something something free market something pay more Regarding Boise, something similar is happening. My BIL purchased a family home after making that move a few years ago and on paper, the value of the home has doubled.
- AmVess 5y ago
  A friend bought a house not that long ago, and the value is up almost 4x. It is a basic home, too. The number of people moving here is crazy. It used to be a cozy town, but now it is LA 2.0.
SnowProblem 5y ago
Spent last summer there in Ketchum, aka Sun Valley, during the pandemic. An absolutely beautiful place to be, but I heard the same thing many times. The lifties at the ski mountain have to bus in 30 minutes from the nearby town Hailey every day to work. The area has become a lot more popular in recent years, and there are huge waiting lists to get into the schools. There's overregulation, yes, but most of the locals also don't want it to change. Frankly, a lot like CA. We decided not to stay. These trends are happening in other mountain towns we visited.
- pinot 5y ago
  Is a 30 minute bus commute all that bad?
  - SnowProblem 5y ago
    It's a fair comment, and I had to reflect on why it seemed bad to me, when I've done much worse commutes on a bus for a software job. I guess it's that you're supposed to be there for a passion, but you're in snow gear, on a wet bus, in the cold, for minimum wage, and 30 minutes is the best case - probably more like 45-50 - only to work for people who make much more money than you, go to places you see but can't afford, who don't understand the local culture, and generally act like they're better. I realize this happens all over, but most workers are seasonal and doing it for a short time as a so-called once-in-a-lifetime experience. I actually took some time off college to do this 10 years ago, and 3 friends and I were able to get a large-ish home in a big ski town within walking distance to the mountain. It was great. We did have friends that drove in from the next town over, but I always felt bad for them, that they were wasting time during this short year. It sucks that that's the default in Ketchum. But I know skiing has only gotten more popular, and maybe this is just the new reality in certain places.
  - x0x0 5y ago
    Probably an hour door to door depending on bus frequency and distance on the two ends...
adolph 5y ago
Ketchum is a resort town surrounded by national park with a larger more inexpensive town down the road. Ketchum is a city in Blaine County, Idaho, located in the central part of the state. The population was 2,689 at the 2010 census, down from 3,003 in 2000. Located in the Wood River Valley, Ketchum is adjacent to Sun Valley and the communities share many resources; both sit in the same valley beneath Bald Mountain, with its world-famous skiing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchum,_Idaho https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchum,_Idaho
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  ... with a larger, more expensive town down the road. I'm pretty sure that Sun Valley is more expensive than Ketchum. Or were you referring to Hailey?
  - adolph 5y ago
    Yes, Hailey and Bellevue, both within 30m drive. Additionally, the historic tax records in Zillow give some indication of a boom-bust cycle in which now is a boom.
- darkstar999 5y ago
  There are no inexpensive towns near Ketchum.
- potta_coffee 5y ago
  Wife grew up in Hailey. It's not by any means inexpensive, especially when you consider the type of people that live there - working class. Many of our friends survived by having 2 - 3 jobs, working at the ski resort, airport, and coffee shops. Normal houses there are selling for 500 - 700k, way beyond what the existing jobs can support.
  - adolph 5y ago
    The stats don't do justice compared to the experiences of real people, for sure. Statistically, the median family income in the county is $73,929 (2010 census). I see a house in Hailey right now on Zillow whose mortgage would likely scrape right under the 30% of income mark. Not a great situation.
Simulacra 5y ago
IANAE but if housing prices are too high, and no one can afford to live in them, at what point or timescale does the price lower to meet demand ability? Clearly there are places to live in, but the prices have become so high that on one can afford them, so that means they sit empty. I would hate for a rental property to sit empty month after month. Is it greed that keeps landlords and companies hanging on to the higher prices, or is there some other dynamic I'm missing? I guess the better question now that I've written all that is this: When does competition kick in?
- ericmay 5y ago
  Well, basically the restaurants will close or just start charging like $50 for a burger and fries. People will find a way. Like maybe they just won't have convenience stores, or restaurants, or w/e. That'll lower the quality of life, or people will just say it's not worth it to have those things in the town. The free market (and voluntary association) is the only solution to this problem. And although I'm a pro-free market guy, I try to view things as what I think might be the best solution. Government intervention here won't work.
  - SmellTheGlove 5y ago
    > Government intervention here won't work. The government has already intervened by not permitting enough new construction. There is no free market there.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      There is no truly free market anywhere anyway which isn't relevant to any conversation. And besides, you're demonstrating the point - the government already intervened. So there's no reasonable criticism of the free market to be had here, in fact, without government intervention there would be new and additional construction. Anyway. The government is made up of the citizens, it's their choice isn't it? At what point does that no longer become true? And if they've made their choice to not build more housing, then the market dynamics that follow that decision will come to bear. In this case maybe it's no stores or shops, or the citizens will have to pay extremely high prices for things.
bedhead 5y ago
I live in a small mountain town. You could swap many towns (usually tourist destinations) in place of Ketchum in this article, it's the same story. These towns tend to be fiercely anti-development, and many people demonize anyone who would like to see growth in housing, and make hyperbolic claims that their quaint little town will look like a Houston suburb at the first sign of a new house being built. Anyway, places like Ketchum got what they wanted, which was generally to preserve the character of the town. Unfortunately they flunked Econ 101, as they're now discovering that the trade off they made (there's always a trade off) was a cost of living that goes vertical. In my town, the problem has surpassed affordability and it's now availability - there is nowhere to live regardless of money. A recent hiring sign in a shop window advertised they will overpay and you can slack off...but they can't fill it because there's nowhere to live. The most frustrating part is that the anti-development crowd who architected all this - whether you agree with it or not - simply won't accept the reality that this was their choice. You can't even talk to them, they blame everything and everyone else. Over the years I've noticed that failure to understand/accept incentives has been the root cause of many problems.
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  The anti-growth crowd is often those who already own homes, so they're gaining from the cost of housing exploding.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    The people who live in an area, it seems, should rightfully decide the rules of that area. It's in their interest to stop competition with their existing property so they will vote against it. At the same time, everyone lives somewhere, and if everyone votes for anti-development policies there will not be enough houses to go around. I guess the policy hurts the up-and-coming to help the established. Still, people should have a right to determine the future of their own communities. I would be interested to hear if any philosophers have untangled this one, because I can clearly see the conflict of two good principles.
    - 5y ago
throwawaycities 5y ago
Only in the US would they brag about the economy based on anecdotal evidence of 1 person working two jobs but can’t afford housing. The mayor proposing “allowing” tents should be forced to live in a tent with the people, I bet the mayor would come up with some new proposals real fast. In fact all politicians should be stripped of healthcare from their compensation packages as well.
- goostavos 5y ago
  No need to be so extreme, you need only make them be near the riffraff to get similar results. If anything can be learned from Seattle (my home), a politician's proximity to a problem is the key indicator for how much that problem will need to be actually solved versus just used as a tool for virtue signalling about how others should live.
  - throwawaycities 5y ago
    > No need to be so extreme, you need only make them be near the riffraff to get similar results. Thing is placing tents near the Mayor’s house would just result in either a rezoning or other form of criminal sanction. Tents are just a way to sweep the problem of homelessness under the rug not to solve it. Soon enough this mayor will be re-running on a platform of having solved the homelessness problem and successfully housing “x” people all while helping business keep wages down.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    This is one argument for banning private schools. I personally think banning private schools is a bit extreme, but it is astonishing to now live somewhere were even families with two professional incomes send their kids to private secondary schools, compared to where I grew up that only the extremely wealthy would do so.
- OJFord 5y ago
  > In fact all politicians should be stripped of healthcare from their compensation packages as well. Ha, I've never thought about that (not American) - I suppose it's no different than choosing a provider for anything else (like travel or couriers) or in-housing it (like pensions) but it does seem funny to me to think of politicians having employer-provided health insurance.
Ccecil 5y ago
Coeur d'Alene, ID is about to go through this same thing. Housing market ramped up values. Landlords are raising rents across the board. There was a recent local article where one rent was raising from $800/mo to $1400. One of the apartment buildings in town went from $1250/mo to $1400 for a 1bd apartment (had to help move my friend from there) and apparently a large portion of the people in the building are behind on rent. When I went to rent a uhaul the lady said all her trucks have been pretty busy. All of their storage units are full of either people who are moving to town or people who have nowhere to go (her words). The jobs which are unable to be filled local are the ones which were typically taken by the 18-30yr crowd. Even though they are paying considerably over minimum wage now there is still a massive shortage of workers (many restaurants are shutting down 1-2days a week due to lack of staff...particularly back of house staff). McDonalds in town is paying $14/hr now to start...minimum wage is $7.25. My pet theory is that the people who normally filled these jobs condensed their living expenses during covid. Moved back in with parents, moved into multi person dwellings. etc. but also even still they realize there is very little hope. If you make the average rate of pay in town $20/hr you can barely rent...and you need to make 3x that to even be considered for the "average house" in town. From my viewpoint I do not see a solution. Either we have tent cities or everyone who speculated and bought in a bubble without paying any attention to what "rent the town can bear" is going to take a massive loss (50% at least). My personal opinion is that this issue is largely caused by vacation rentals. It isn't that everyone is moving here (we have had that since the 70s) it is that everyone moving here is buying 2 houses and turning what was once affordable rentals into unregulated hotel rooms that cost $6k/mo. Idaho enacted laws in 2017 to prevent any area in the state from blocking vacation rentals in any way. Ketchum, Coeur d'Alene, Boise...are all seeing this issue. The next big crash will come when the large portion of remote workers who moved here are asked to come back to the office. If they refuse they won't be able to find a comparable job anywhere in the area. What was once a "steal" and "so cheap" now becomes way out of their price range once they are required to find local work. Again, I don't have a solution. Just observing from the trenches.
- raunak 5y ago
  One pretty simple solution seems to be enacting common-sense laws prohibiting turning zoned housing into rental properties - I’m not sure if the state govt. would ever do it though. My other proposal would be to enact laws against buying a home and not living in it, but again, not sure how legal/morally right to prohibit property ownership just like _that_
neallindsay 5y ago
My city actually has infinite jobs available paying $0/hour—why didn't they write this story about here? An "available job" that pays less than the cost of living is nothing.
Popegaf 5y ago
If you can't afford to live where you work, why stay? It can't be the only place with work, right? If the economic situation that bad in the US?
- NickBusey 5y ago
  Do you have any idea what it can cost to move in the US? Saving up first and last months rent, plus a security deposit, then finding a new rental who's start lines up somewhat closely with the end of your current lease, then renting a moving van and spending money on a move that will take multiple days of travel/hotels etc. Not to mention things like paying for a new driver's license, new registration on your car, having to move all your insurance over to places with potentially higher rates. It's not as easy as just 'hop in the car and find a new place'.
  - Ccecil 5y ago
    Don't forget you are saving for all this while paying an ever increasing cost of living. Your rent has already increased 40% before you realize that it is time to go. Also, where do you go? It isn't like there is some perfect spot right now where jobs match cost of living. Not to mention...a lot of people have long term ties in areas. Most of my family is here. In my case I have lived in my town for 40 years...but I am being priced out of the town.
  - soco 5y ago
    I'd say the hurdle of moving are the same anywhere in the world - including deposits and trucks and insurance and all that. I can't even imagine moving in other ways... moving is a costly hassle which sometimes is the only option.
    - em-bee 5y ago
      i believe most people only move at significant stages in their life. when they move out of their parents house, when they finish university, when they get married, and maybe when their kids leave the house. in most places, only single people are able to move to change jobs, everyone else needs to find jobs where they live. and once kids are in school, moving is often simply not an option, because changing schools is not something done lightly if you don't want your kids to be disturbed by loosing all their friends. the actual cost of moving doesn't even factor into all this.
MelvinButtsESQ 5y ago
Seems to me that anybody looking for a job would do a cost of living evaluation in addition to what their potential salary is and decide accordingly. This isn't rocket science folks. In regards to employers, raise pay if can't get workers. Employees will come when they can live on the pay.
exhibitapp 5y ago
https://archive.fo/EgWrM https://archive.fo/EgWrM
mabbo 5y ago
I love when simple, real-world examples of basic econ 101 show themselves. In all transactions- buying, selling, or exchanging labour for money- both sides of the agreement have to see a beneficial deal. You feel that the iPhone 27 is worth however much money, and the store selling you feels that the money is worth giving you the iPhone. If either side does not agree, there is no sale. "Plenty of available jobs" is what happens when the deal you are offering- cash for labour- is not an acceptable deal to the labour side. When businesses cannot be profitable at market-chosen labour prices, the businesses will close down.
- war1025 5y ago
  The article isn't actually about housing being unaffordable. It says housing is unavailable. They could build more housing, but no one wants to get caught holding the bag if the boom turns to a bust as the world returns more to normal. And even if they did choose to build the housing, housing next year doesn't solve the issue of housing today. That said, where I live we are building plenty of housing but we still can't fill jobs. Why exactly is hard to say, but general consensus is that government unemployment benefits are currently compelling enough that people will trade taking a hit on their income in exchange for not having to work. Can't blame them, I guess. Seems like a painful readjustment in the coming years as we unwind all the emergency decisions we made last year.
  - jrs235 5y ago
    OP's comment still holds true: "Plenty of available jobs" is what happens when the deal you are offering- cash for labour- is not an acceptable deal to the labour side. When businesses cannot be profitable at market-chosen labour prices, the businesses will close down. When low paid workers can't afford to live locally because of availability of affordable housing, they must live further away. Commuting has a cost too so if low paid workers can afford housing an hour away, it still might be cost prohibited to take those jobs because commuting costs too much (or "affordable" transportation isn't available). Then if you include the 2+ hours of commute time per shift to take those jobs, it may very well make those jobs less attractive as the effective hourly pay rate is lower than elsewhere.
gr1zzlybe4r 5y ago
This problem is an American problem - the only places that seem to not have affordability problems are the areas that are shrinking. Name any town in the US that experiences even slightly above average growth and you'll also find some sort of affordability issues. My $0.02 is because local residents have entirely too much control over building and zoning rules, and their interest are always such that they rationally oppose new developments. Given the fractured nature of building and zoning laws in the US, the only long term solution I see to this is state or federal level zoning requirements coupled with a slowdown of monetary stimulus and/or restrictions on non-resident purchases of properties for renting.
- handrous 5y ago
  Houses in my 3rd-tier (2.5th if we're generous) city in a painfully dull part of the country have appreciated ~30% in the last 2 years with no sign of slowing down. We're not in the news. No tech giants have announced new campuses here. We're not, so far as I know, any kind of notable destination for ex-Californians. There's house and apartment construction all over the place and it sure doesn't seem to be hard to get more approved, unlike some places that report that housing's not being built. This during a pandemic that should have cooled the economy somewhat. WTF.
  - gr1zzlybe4r 5y ago
    Are you in a growing state or region of the country? Growth could mean either economic or population, but primarily thinking population here.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  This is also the a major reason why building non-housing infrastructure (bridges, rail, &c.) is so slow and expensive in the US compared to Europe. Any infrastructure that might possibly disturb someone who can afford a lawyer will be delayed and expensive. One project I was personally familiar with was delayed for over 10 years because a neighbor would challenge the plan. Each time found a different ordinance to nit-pick with. It was catch-22; if the nit-pick was fought, it caused delays, if the plans were modified, then it was now a new plan, and he could start all over with challenges to it. Another great example is that people living in a tiny town in Virginia were able to get a major bridge over the potomac completely redesigned from a suspension bridge to a draw-bridge (making it more expensive, a shorter lifespan, and less amenable to shipping) because the towers of the planned suspension bridge would be visible from their houses. Wikipedia calls this "considerable study and public debate[1]" 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_Bridge#Replacement_bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_Bridge#Replacem...
raunak 5y ago
The labor shortage is something that doesn’t make sense to me, and it might just be basic ignorance, but I have a few questions: 1) if we so often hear about how corporations have the money to pay more, and they’re simply using it to line corporate pockets, wouldn’t they rather pay a livable wage to employees over shutting down restaurants, businesses, etc. entirely? 2) is it primarily affecting small businesses, or are the posts I’ve seen about Taco Bell/chains not finding labor true as well? 3) how is it that only now employees are realizing they can make more money from unemployment than working - what uniquely changed? Was it just the absurd amounts of money being pumped from stimulus checks?
- maxsilver 5y ago
  > if we so often hear about how corporations have the money to pay more, and they’re simply using it to line corporate pockets, wouldn’t they rather pay a livable wage to employees over shutting down restaurants, businesses, etc. entirely? If they were perfectly rational actors, sure. But businesses and corporations aren't real, they're fake entities that exist just to shield owners from liability. The actual owners of these things are humans, with human emotions just like any other person. What we're seeing is owners getting angry, and refusing to pay fair wages despite the fact that it makes them less profitable to be upset like this. Depending on how they choose to vent their anger, it is sometimes labeled as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_strike > how is it that only now employees are realizing they can make more money from unemployment than working They aren't -- employees aren't making more money from unemployment than working. They're just realizing "working" isn't really working (it costs more money to go to work, than most of these companies will pay them back in wages). You could eliminate all unemployment entirely, this situation would not change at all. > Was it just the absurd amounts of money being pumped from stimulus checks? No. The stimulus checks had tiny, paltry amounts of cash, and also ended months ago. Some unemployment benefits existed for longer, but they are also running out (or already have, depending on your state). Either way, the situation won't change at all when that ends, because the problem has nothing to do with outside checks. The problem is that in many places in the US, it costs workers more money to show up to work, than they earn from doing that days work. Why would you go punch a clock at Taco Bell, if you ended up poorer every day for working? If after a hard days work, you had less money on you than you did the day before? You wouldn't, no rational person would do this. But that's the actual reality in much of the US today, which is why a lot of people simply aren't doing these jobs anymore. If Taco Bell pays you $14/hr, but it costs you $20/hr just to be able to show up to work at all (that's a realistic number in many cities today), then you lose $6/hr for every hour you work. You are, effectively, donating money to a for-profit corporation. Most rational folks aren't going to be happy to do that, so they aren't taking those "jobs" anymore.
notional 5y ago
I don't see 1031 exchange mentioned much in the discussions of housing problems. People who own real estate absolutely lose their shit when this is brought up as something that should go away which is by itself a pretty good indicator. There's so much tax collection being 'lost' on this it's something that should be repealed but likely won't. I have also noticed that although people are recognizing their is a massive growing homeless population in all cities, particularly the west coast, it gets pushed away as just a bunch of drug users on fent, instead of realizing the bulk of these people became homeless in the last 3 years as housing and rentals have blown up in costs without wages matching. There's so little resources for the people at the bottom suffering homelessness, the only thing keeping a lot of people housed right now is the soon-expiring eviction moratoriums.
- harambae 5y ago
  >soon-expiring eviction moratoriums Yeah they're about to expire, just like they've been about to expire for a year. I'll believe it when I see it. "The Biden administration announced on June 24 an extension of the federal eviction moratorium issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through July 31, 2021, and that it will implement a whole-of-government approach to prevent an historic wave of evictions this summer" [0] [0] https://nlihc.org/coronavirus-and-housing-homelessness/national-eviction-moratorium https://nlihc.org/coronavirus-and-housing-homelessness/natio...
  - jdhn 5y ago
    It blows my mind that the CDC can issue rent eviction moratoriums, and that this is completely legal.
- yonran 5y ago
  I don’t have a problem with the tools in the tax code to defer realization for capital gains taxes during a lifetime e.g. 1031 exchange, traditional 401(k) or IRA, in-kind redemption for ETFs, etc., so long as the taxes eventually do get paid on the gains. The real issue in my opinion is the loopholes in the tax code to avoid capital gains taxes completely e.g. step-up basis on death + $11.7 million estate and gift tax exclusion per person, $500k capital gains tax exclusion for sale of a home for a married couple (Section 121), Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts, Roth IRAs.
swiley 5y ago
That's a long way to say that Ketchum, Idaho has no jobs because the market can't afford workers.
pgodzin 5y ago
Of course the opposition to new housing is from existing homeowners whose property values benefit from increasing scarcity amidst sky-high demand. > In late May, dozens of people gathered in Ketchum’s town square to protest the lack of housing and support a new 56-unit affordable-housing complex that a developer wants to build downtown. Some residents oppose the project, which the city council is still weighing, saying it would shrink what limited parking there is and concentrate low-income housing in a single area.
benlivengood 5y ago
How much of increased housing costs are due to current increased cost of building materials for new construction? If there's one force that is more national than local it's the supply of construction materials. Construction labor is at least regional, if not national. There was also a significant dip in new construction during the pandemic which must have had an effect on pricing. Having built my own house ~15 years ago (I only contracted out earthwork, concrete finishing, trusses, and shingles) I am aware that construction materials are generally a small fraction of total cost, but labor can easily be half of the total cost. Finally there is probably an aspect of financial bubble happening as people try not to miss out on rising housing prices, willing to pay a steep premium to own housing the traditional way instead of through a mutual fund or similar investment. [*] https://www.cato.org/blog/how-us-trade-policy-contributes-our-insane-construction-materials-costs https://www.cato.org/blog/how-us-trade-policy-contributes-ou...
jrs235 5y ago
If workers can't afford housing, you'll have plenty of empty and available positions, even at $15 / hour. Especially if you want / need reliable (ABLE to reliably show up for shifts) workers. Let me break it down... Let's start with $15 an hour. Let's be generous and assume five 8 hour shifts per week (2080 hours per year: 5 shifts per week * 8 hours per shift * 52 weeks per year). That's $600 per week ($15 per hour * 5 shifts per week * 8 hours per shift). Or $31200 ($600 per week * 52 weeks) per year. Let's assume affordable housing is 30 miles away and takes an average of 1 hour to commute one way. That's 10 hours of commuting per week (5 shifts, 1 hour EACH way or 1 * 5 * 2) or 520 hours commuting per year (10 hours per week * 52 weeks per yr). The time commitment of the worker is 10 hours per shift (8 paid working, 2 unpaid commuting). The yearly time commitment is 2600 hours per year (2080 working, 520 commuting). So the effective hourly rate is $31200/yr / 2600 hours/yr which is $12 per hour. BUT! Commuting isn't free. Let's assume the worker owns a car in order to get to and from work. Let's round off the cost per mile (gas, wear and tear) to be 50 cents a mile. So the cost of commuting per shift is $30 (30 miles one way * 2 ways * $.50 / mile) or $7800 per year ($30 per shift times 5 shifts per week * 52 weeks per year)! SO! To have the $15 per hour job costs the worker $7800 per year and 2600 hours per year! So, ($31200 per year - $7800 per year) / 2600 hours = $23400 / 2600 hours = $9 per hour! $9 per hour! That $15 per hour job is competing with $9 per hour jobs that are closer and more local to affordable housing and giving thousands of hours per year back to the worker. Think about that...
- effingwewt 5y ago
  You can also add federal taxes, some states take an income tax as well. And this assumes no children, so no costs for child care. Throw that in the mix and it can actually cost some people money just to work. We need to fix the incentives when businesses would rather scream and close their doors than make less and pay a living wage for their location.
- jrs235 5y ago
  *giving :hundreds: of hours per year back to the worker.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
I wonder how often a high cost of living/housing prices employers out of markets. Surely Ketchum, ID is not the only town where this happened.
8bitsrule 5y ago
A couple of times in recent decades, North Dakota had an oil boom. The jobs were out in the middle of nowhere; available spaces in nearby small towns quickly filled. Somehow the people hiring managed to find hundreds of mobile homes for the workers to live in, and a location or two near the job site. OTOH, towns that want permanent workers better wise up.
slt2021 5y ago
housing prices are increased because Uncle Sam is printing money and buying up all the mortgages that are being underwritten by banks. Increased demand and zero % rates lead to increased demand for housing and increased prices.

89 points by erehweb 5y ago

> Ketchum is facing a cascading housing crisis caused by a rush of new residents during the Covid-19 pandemic, growing demand for workers during the economic boom that has followed > the economic boom that has followed Is this what we're calling it?

murph-almighty 5y ago
There are jobs, plenty of jobs, and yet somehow no one filling those roles. Never mind that they're underpaying... or that we lost half a million people in the labor force...
- nvahalik 5y ago
  > or that we lost half a million people in the labor force... This is not true, unless you're considering all ages in the labor force. Stats from this page[0] seem to indicate that COVID-related deaths are <120k for people under age 65. That's quite a bit less than "half a million people" in the labor force. (Assuming, like I am that people tend to retire at 65.) [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...
  - kube-system 5y ago
    I think they meant “lost” as in “not participating” not “lost” as in “dead” I haven’t looked up the change in labor force stats myself, but they’re not simply the total number of living people in a certain age bracket. There are plenty of people between 18-65 who aren’t part of the labor force: i.e: disabled, retired, stay-at-home, incarcerated, etc.
- amiga 5y ago
  "Pay more" does seem like the best response here
  - seafoam 5y ago
    That is not how this works. Instead : capacity gets curtailed, prices are raised, and what people can afford goes down.
- newfriend 5y ago
  Or that the government is paying people who don't want to work.
war1025 5y ago
The town is having an economic boom because it saw a large influx of remote workers this past year. Those workers require goods and services, which leads to job openings to fill the demand. It may come as a surprise to people in large cities, but the vast majority of the country (geographically) was pretty much business as usual from summer 2020 onward.
long_time_gone 5y ago
What would you call it? Q1 2021 - 6.4% growth [0] Q2 2021 - 7.8% growth [1] [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/188185/percent-change-from-preceding-period-in-real-gdp-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/188185/percent-change-fr... [1] https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow
- tengbretson 5y ago
  Isn't GDP measured in dollars?
  - long_time_gone 5y ago
    Yes, the US economy is measured in US dollars. If you are trying to make a cryptic remark about inflation, I've linked some information on how GDP is measured. Specifically, "The nation's gross domestic product totals trillions of dollars. Most often, the number you'll hear people refer to as "GDP" is a percentage. That's the rate of change in real GDP from the previous quarter or year. "Real" or "chained" GDP numbers have been adjusted to remove the effects of inflation over time, so different periods can be compared." [0] https://www.bea.gov/resources/learning-center/what-to-know-gdp https://www.bea.gov/resources/learning-center/what-to-know-g...

Blackthorn 5y ago

How can they suggest those tents would be "temporary" with a straight face? If you're not planning on building more houses except those tents, how do you expect anyone to move out of the tents into houses?

soco 5y ago
They're probably hoping the tents people will get disgusted and leave town so everything will be like in ye olden days.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

yardie 5y ago

This reminds me of housing problems in boom towns. People move to the towns because reasons and overwhelm the basically static housing supply. Towns are reluctant to build out infrastructure because it's expensive and time consuming and they aren't sure how long the boom will last. Developers are reluctant to build because they don't want to take the risk of building out more housing and then just as they open everyone leaves, again. People are spending their summers, remotely working, in a winter resort town. But what happens when the winter comes and the town isn't so fun anymore. Or when the SV office wants you closer to home. Will some of these remote working migrants be willing to take on a pre-construction loan and 30 year mortgage? Probably not, which is why housing is the way it is. Everyone is grazing and trying to figure out this new era of labour.

Izikiel43 5y ago
> winter resort town > what happens when the winter comes and the town isn't so fun anymore? You learn how to ski, then you have fun in the winter.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

This country is rapidly approaching a serious precipice. The decades of stagnating wage growth is catching up with the pace of modern life. Corporations run the country and governments don't give two shits. I've always been an optimist, living in the best days of civilization etc, but it gets harder and harder every day to continue thinking this.

rejectedandsad 5y ago
I feel like most of these problems can be solved by increasing density and having fast transportation links. We are better off having Chinese ghost cities than low density superstar cities where the average worker has to commute hours thanks to a woke left fear of “gentrification”. Build, baby build.
- raunak 5y ago
  Does a country really benefit from a majority of its people living in hyperdense incredibly urbanized cities, stacked on top of another in 200 sq. ft apartments? Gotta be a better solution - I of course don’t know what it is, but just my 2¢
  - rejectedandsad 5y ago
    You’re free to not live in cities. But even suburbs don’t build like they did in the 70s.
  - ChrisLTD 5y ago
    Can we compromise at 750 square feet?
- majormajor 5y ago
  If we thought it was worth forcing people to move the problem could be solved without creating a bunch of new ghost cities, there's already a LOT of undesirable cheap places. But forced relocation is not something you're gonna get many people on board with.

clusterhacks 5y ago

My brother-in-law left Ketchum several years ago to move to Boise specifically because housing costs are too high for middle-class wage earners. something something free market something pay more Regarding Boise, something similar is happening. My BIL purchased a family home after making that move a few years ago and on paper, the value of the home has doubled.

AmVess 5y ago
A friend bought a house not that long ago, and the value is up almost 4x. It is a basic home, too. The number of people moving here is crazy. It used to be a cozy town, but now it is LA 2.0.

SnowProblem 5y ago

Spent last summer there in Ketchum, aka Sun Valley, during the pandemic. An absolutely beautiful place to be, but I heard the same thing many times. The lifties at the ski mountain have to bus in 30 minutes from the nearby town Hailey every day to work. The area has become a lot more popular in recent years, and there are huge waiting lists to get into the schools. There's overregulation, yes, but most of the locals also don't want it to change. Frankly, a lot like CA. We decided not to stay. These trends are happening in other mountain towns we visited.

pinot 5y ago
Is a 30 minute bus commute all that bad?
- SnowProblem 5y ago
  It's a fair comment, and I had to reflect on why it seemed bad to me, when I've done much worse commutes on a bus for a software job. I guess it's that you're supposed to be there for a passion, but you're in snow gear, on a wet bus, in the cold, for minimum wage, and 30 minutes is the best case - probably more like 45-50 - only to work for people who make much more money than you, go to places you see but can't afford, who don't understand the local culture, and generally act like they're better. I realize this happens all over, but most workers are seasonal and doing it for a short time as a so-called once-in-a-lifetime experience. I actually took some time off college to do this 10 years ago, and 3 friends and I were able to get a large-ish home in a big ski town within walking distance to the mountain. It was great. We did have friends that drove in from the next town over, but I always felt bad for them, that they were wasting time during this short year. It sucks that that's the default in Ketchum. But I know skiing has only gotten more popular, and maybe this is just the new reality in certain places.
- x0x0 5y ago
  Probably an hour door to door depending on bus frequency and distance on the two ends...

adolph 5y ago

Ketchum is a resort town surrounded by national park with a larger more inexpensive town down the road. Ketchum is a city in Blaine County, Idaho, located in the central part of the state. The population was 2,689 at the 2010 census, down from 3,003 in 2000. Located in the Wood River Valley, Ketchum is adjacent to Sun Valley and the communities share many resources; both sit in the same valley beneath Bald Mountain, with its world-famous skiing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchum,_Idaho https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchum,_Idaho

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
... with a larger, more expensive town down the road. I'm pretty sure that Sun Valley is more expensive than Ketchum. Or were you referring to Hailey?
- adolph 5y ago
  Yes, Hailey and Bellevue, both within 30m drive. Additionally, the historic tax records in Zillow give some indication of a boom-bust cycle in which now is a boom.
darkstar999 5y ago
There are no inexpensive towns near Ketchum.
potta_coffee 5y ago
Wife grew up in Hailey. It's not by any means inexpensive, especially when you consider the type of people that live there - working class. Many of our friends survived by having 2 - 3 jobs, working at the ski resort, airport, and coffee shops. Normal houses there are selling for 500 - 700k, way beyond what the existing jobs can support.
- adolph 5y ago
  The stats don't do justice compared to the experiences of real people, for sure. Statistically, the median family income in the county is $73,929 (2010 census). I see a house in Hailey right now on Zillow whose mortgage would likely scrape right under the 30% of income mark. Not a great situation.

Simulacra 5y ago

IANAE but if housing prices are too high, and no one can afford to live in them, at what point or timescale does the price lower to meet demand ability? Clearly there are places to live in, but the prices have become so high that on one can afford them, so that means they sit empty. I would hate for a rental property to sit empty month after month. Is it greed that keeps landlords and companies hanging on to the higher prices, or is there some other dynamic I'm missing? I guess the better question now that I've written all that is this: When does competition kick in?

ericmay 5y ago
Well, basically the restaurants will close or just start charging like $50 for a burger and fries. People will find a way. Like maybe they just won't have convenience stores, or restaurants, or w/e. That'll lower the quality of life, or people will just say it's not worth it to have those things in the town. The free market (and voluntary association) is the only solution to this problem. And although I'm a pro-free market guy, I try to view things as what I think might be the best solution. Government intervention here won't work.
- SmellTheGlove 5y ago
  > Government intervention here won't work. The government has already intervened by not permitting enough new construction. There is no free market there.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    There is no truly free market anywhere anyway which isn't relevant to any conversation. And besides, you're demonstrating the point - the government already intervened. So there's no reasonable criticism of the free market to be had here, in fact, without government intervention there would be new and additional construction. Anyway. The government is made up of the citizens, it's their choice isn't it? At what point does that no longer become true? And if they've made their choice to not build more housing, then the market dynamics that follow that decision will come to bear. In this case maybe it's no stores or shops, or the citizens will have to pay extremely high prices for things.

bedhead 5y ago

I live in a small mountain town. You could swap many towns (usually tourist destinations) in place of Ketchum in this article, it's the same story. These towns tend to be fiercely anti-development, and many people demonize anyone who would like to see growth in housing, and make hyperbolic claims that their quaint little town will look like a Houston suburb at the first sign of a new house being built. Anyway, places like Ketchum got what they wanted, which was generally to preserve the character of the town. Unfortunately they flunked Econ 101, as they're now discovering that the trade off they made (there's always a trade off) was a cost of living that goes vertical. In my town, the problem has surpassed affordability and it's now availability - there is nowhere to live regardless of money. A recent hiring sign in a shop window advertised they will overpay and you can slack off...but they can't fill it because there's nowhere to live. The most frustrating part is that the anti-development crowd who architected all this - whether you agree with it or not - simply won't accept the reality that this was their choice. You can't even talk to them, they blame everything and everyone else. Over the years I've noticed that failure to understand/accept incentives has been the root cause of many problems.

HideousKojima 5y ago
The anti-growth crowd is often those who already own homes, so they're gaining from the cost of housing exploding.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  The people who live in an area, it seems, should rightfully decide the rules of that area. It's in their interest to stop competition with their existing property so they will vote against it. At the same time, everyone lives somewhere, and if everyone votes for anti-development policies there will not be enough houses to go around. I guess the policy hurts the up-and-coming to help the established. Still, people should have a right to determine the future of their own communities. I would be interested to hear if any philosophers have untangled this one, because I can clearly see the conflict of two good principles.
  - 5y ago

throwawaycities 5y ago

Only in the US would they brag about the economy based on anecdotal evidence of 1 person working two jobs but can’t afford housing. The mayor proposing “allowing” tents should be forced to live in a tent with the people, I bet the mayor would come up with some new proposals real fast. In fact all politicians should be stripped of healthcare from their compensation packages as well.

goostavos 5y ago
No need to be so extreme, you need only make them be near the riffraff to get similar results. If anything can be learned from Seattle (my home), a politician's proximity to a problem is the key indicator for how much that problem will need to be actually solved versus just used as a tool for virtue signalling about how others should live.
- throwawaycities 5y ago
  > No need to be so extreme, you need only make them be near the riffraff to get similar results. Thing is placing tents near the Mayor’s house would just result in either a rezoning or other form of criminal sanction. Tents are just a way to sweep the problem of homelessness under the rug not to solve it. Soon enough this mayor will be re-running on a platform of having solved the homelessness problem and successfully housing “x” people all while helping business keep wages down.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  This is one argument for banning private schools. I personally think banning private schools is a bit extreme, but it is astonishing to now live somewhere were even families with two professional incomes send their kids to private secondary schools, compared to where I grew up that only the extremely wealthy would do so.
OJFord 5y ago
> In fact all politicians should be stripped of healthcare from their compensation packages as well. Ha, I've never thought about that (not American) - I suppose it's no different than choosing a provider for anything else (like travel or couriers) or in-housing it (like pensions) but it does seem funny to me to think of politicians having employer-provided health insurance.

Ccecil 5y ago

Coeur d'Alene, ID is about to go through this same thing. Housing market ramped up values. Landlords are raising rents across the board. There was a recent local article where one rent was raising from $800/mo to $1400. One of the apartment buildings in town went from $1250/mo to $1400 for a 1bd apartment (had to help move my friend from there) and apparently a large portion of the people in the building are behind on rent. When I went to rent a uhaul the lady said all her trucks have been pretty busy. All of their storage units are full of either people who are moving to town or people who have nowhere to go (her words). The jobs which are unable to be filled local are the ones which were typically taken by the 18-30yr crowd. Even though they are paying considerably over minimum wage now there is still a massive shortage of workers (many restaurants are shutting down 1-2days a week due to lack of staff...particularly back of house staff). McDonalds in town is paying $14/hr now to start...minimum wage is $7.25. My pet theory is that the people who normally filled these jobs condensed their living expenses during covid. Moved back in with parents, moved into multi person dwellings. etc. but also even still they realize there is very little hope. If you make the average rate of pay in town $20/hr you can barely rent...and you need to make 3x that to even be considered for the "average house" in town. From my viewpoint I do not see a solution. Either we have tent cities or everyone who speculated and bought in a bubble without paying any attention to what "rent the town can bear" is going to take a massive loss (50% at least). My personal opinion is that this issue is largely caused by vacation rentals. It isn't that everyone is moving here (we have had that since the 70s) it is that everyone moving here is buying 2 houses and turning what was once affordable rentals into unregulated hotel rooms that cost $6k/mo. Idaho enacted laws in 2017 to prevent any area in the state from blocking vacation rentals in any way. Ketchum, Coeur d'Alene, Boise...are all seeing this issue. The next big crash will come when the large portion of remote workers who moved here are asked to come back to the office. If they refuse they won't be able to find a comparable job anywhere in the area. What was once a "steal" and "so cheap" now becomes way out of their price range once they are required to find local work. Again, I don't have a solution. Just observing from the trenches.

raunak 5y ago
One pretty simple solution seems to be enacting common-sense laws prohibiting turning zoned housing into rental properties - I’m not sure if the state govt. would ever do it though. My other proposal would be to enact laws against buying a home and not living in it, but again, not sure how legal/morally right to prohibit property ownership just like _that_

neallindsay 5y ago

My city actually has infinite jobs available paying $0/hour—why didn't they write this story about here? An "available job" that pays less than the cost of living is nothing.

Popegaf 5y ago

If you can't afford to live where you work, why stay? It can't be the only place with work, right? If the economic situation that bad in the US?

NickBusey 5y ago
Do you have any idea what it can cost to move in the US? Saving up first and last months rent, plus a security deposit, then finding a new rental who's start lines up somewhat closely with the end of your current lease, then renting a moving van and spending money on a move that will take multiple days of travel/hotels etc. Not to mention things like paying for a new driver's license, new registration on your car, having to move all your insurance over to places with potentially higher rates. It's not as easy as just 'hop in the car and find a new place'.
- Ccecil 5y ago
  Don't forget you are saving for all this while paying an ever increasing cost of living. Your rent has already increased 40% before you realize that it is time to go. Also, where do you go? It isn't like there is some perfect spot right now where jobs match cost of living. Not to mention...a lot of people have long term ties in areas. Most of my family is here. In my case I have lived in my town for 40 years...but I am being priced out of the town.
- soco 5y ago
  I'd say the hurdle of moving are the same anywhere in the world - including deposits and trucks and insurance and all that. I can't even imagine moving in other ways... moving is a costly hassle which sometimes is the only option.
  - em-bee 5y ago
    i believe most people only move at significant stages in their life. when they move out of their parents house, when they finish university, when they get married, and maybe when their kids leave the house. in most places, only single people are able to move to change jobs, everyone else needs to find jobs where they live. and once kids are in school, moving is often simply not an option, because changing schools is not something done lightly if you don't want your kids to be disturbed by loosing all their friends. the actual cost of moving doesn't even factor into all this.

MelvinButtsESQ 5y ago

Seems to me that anybody looking for a job would do a cost of living evaluation in addition to what their potential salary is and decide accordingly. This isn't rocket science folks. In regards to employers, raise pay if can't get workers. Employees will come when they can live on the pay.

exhibitapp 5y ago

https://archive.fo/EgWrM https://archive.fo/EgWrM

mabbo 5y ago

I love when simple, real-world examples of basic econ 101 show themselves. In all transactions- buying, selling, or exchanging labour for money- both sides of the agreement have to see a beneficial deal. You feel that the iPhone 27 is worth however much money, and the store selling you feels that the money is worth giving you the iPhone. If either side does not agree, there is no sale. "Plenty of available jobs" is what happens when the deal you are offering- cash for labour- is not an acceptable deal to the labour side. When businesses cannot be profitable at market-chosen labour prices, the businesses will close down.

war1025 5y ago
The article isn't actually about housing being unaffordable. It says housing is unavailable. They could build more housing, but no one wants to get caught holding the bag if the boom turns to a bust as the world returns more to normal. And even if they did choose to build the housing, housing next year doesn't solve the issue of housing today. That said, where I live we are building plenty of housing but we still can't fill jobs. Why exactly is hard to say, but general consensus is that government unemployment benefits are currently compelling enough that people will trade taking a hit on their income in exchange for not having to work. Can't blame them, I guess. Seems like a painful readjustment in the coming years as we unwind all the emergency decisions we made last year.
- jrs235 5y ago
  OP's comment still holds true: "Plenty of available jobs" is what happens when the deal you are offering- cash for labour- is not an acceptable deal to the labour side. When businesses cannot be profitable at market-chosen labour prices, the businesses will close down. When low paid workers can't afford to live locally because of availability of affordable housing, they must live further away. Commuting has a cost too so if low paid workers can afford housing an hour away, it still might be cost prohibited to take those jobs because commuting costs too much (or "affordable" transportation isn't available). Then if you include the 2+ hours of commute time per shift to take those jobs, it may very well make those jobs less attractive as the effective hourly pay rate is lower than elsewhere.

gr1zzlybe4r 5y ago

This problem is an American problem - the only places that seem to not have affordability problems are the areas that are shrinking. Name any town in the US that experiences even slightly above average growth and you'll also find some sort of affordability issues. My $0.02 is because local residents have entirely too much control over building and zoning rules, and their interest are always such that they rationally oppose new developments. Given the fractured nature of building and zoning laws in the US, the only long term solution I see to this is state or federal level zoning requirements coupled with a slowdown of monetary stimulus and/or restrictions on non-resident purchases of properties for renting.

handrous 5y ago
Houses in my 3rd-tier (2.5th if we're generous) city in a painfully dull part of the country have appreciated ~30% in the last 2 years with no sign of slowing down. We're not in the news. No tech giants have announced new campuses here. We're not, so far as I know, any kind of notable destination for ex-Californians. There's house and apartment construction all over the place and it sure doesn't seem to be hard to get more approved, unlike some places that report that housing's not being built. This during a pandemic that should have cooled the economy somewhat. WTF.
- gr1zzlybe4r 5y ago
  Are you in a growing state or region of the country? Growth could mean either economic or population, but primarily thinking population here.
aidenn0 5y ago
This is also the a major reason why building non-housing infrastructure (bridges, rail, &c.) is so slow and expensive in the US compared to Europe. Any infrastructure that might possibly disturb someone who can afford a lawyer will be delayed and expensive. One project I was personally familiar with was delayed for over 10 years because a neighbor would challenge the plan. Each time found a different ordinance to nit-pick with. It was catch-22; if the nit-pick was fought, it caused delays, if the plans were modified, then it was now a new plan, and he could start all over with challenges to it. Another great example is that people living in a tiny town in Virginia were able to get a major bridge over the potomac completely redesigned from a suspension bridge to a draw-bridge (making it more expensive, a shorter lifespan, and less amenable to shipping) because the towers of the planned suspension bridge would be visible from their houses. Wikipedia calls this "considerable study and public debate[1]" 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_Bridge#Replacement_bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_Bridge#Replacem...

raunak 5y ago

The labor shortage is something that doesn’t make sense to me, and it might just be basic ignorance, but I have a few questions: 1) if we so often hear about how corporations have the money to pay more, and they’re simply using it to line corporate pockets, wouldn’t they rather pay a livable wage to employees over shutting down restaurants, businesses, etc. entirely? 2) is it primarily affecting small businesses, or are the posts I’ve seen about Taco Bell/chains not finding labor true as well? 3) how is it that only now employees are realizing they can make more money from unemployment than working - what uniquely changed? Was it just the absurd amounts of money being pumped from stimulus checks?

maxsilver 5y ago
> if we so often hear about how corporations have the money to pay more, and they’re simply using it to line corporate pockets, wouldn’t they rather pay a livable wage to employees over shutting down restaurants, businesses, etc. entirely? If they were perfectly rational actors, sure. But businesses and corporations aren't real, they're fake entities that exist just to shield owners from liability. The actual owners of these things are humans, with human emotions just like any other person. What we're seeing is owners getting angry, and refusing to pay fair wages despite the fact that it makes them less profitable to be upset like this. Depending on how they choose to vent their anger, it is sometimes labeled as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_strike > how is it that only now employees are realizing they can make more money from unemployment than working They aren't -- employees aren't making more money from unemployment than working. They're just realizing "working" isn't really working (it costs more money to go to work, than most of these companies will pay them back in wages). You could eliminate all unemployment entirely, this situation would not change at all. > Was it just the absurd amounts of money being pumped from stimulus checks? No. The stimulus checks had tiny, paltry amounts of cash, and also ended months ago. Some unemployment benefits existed for longer, but they are also running out (or already have, depending on your state). Either way, the situation won't change at all when that ends, because the problem has nothing to do with outside checks. The problem is that in many places in the US, it costs workers more money to show up to work, than they earn from doing that days work. Why would you go punch a clock at Taco Bell, if you ended up poorer every day for working? If after a hard days work, you had less money on you than you did the day before? You wouldn't, no rational person would do this. But that's the actual reality in much of the US today, which is why a lot of people simply aren't doing these jobs anymore. If Taco Bell pays you $14/hr, but it costs you $20/hr just to be able to show up to work at all (that's a realistic number in many cities today), then you lose $6/hr for every hour you work. You are, effectively, donating money to a for-profit corporation. Most rational folks aren't going to be happy to do that, so they aren't taking those "jobs" anymore.

notional 5y ago

I don't see 1031 exchange mentioned much in the discussions of housing problems. People who own real estate absolutely lose their shit when this is brought up as something that should go away which is by itself a pretty good indicator. There's so much tax collection being 'lost' on this it's something that should be repealed but likely won't. I have also noticed that although people are recognizing their is a massive growing homeless population in all cities, particularly the west coast, it gets pushed away as just a bunch of drug users on fent, instead of realizing the bulk of these people became homeless in the last 3 years as housing and rentals have blown up in costs without wages matching. There's so little resources for the people at the bottom suffering homelessness, the only thing keeping a lot of people housed right now is the soon-expiring eviction moratoriums.

harambae 5y ago
>soon-expiring eviction moratoriums Yeah they're about to expire, just like they've been about to expire for a year. I'll believe it when I see it. "The Biden administration announced on June 24 an extension of the federal eviction moratorium issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through July 31, 2021, and that it will implement a whole-of-government approach to prevent an historic wave of evictions this summer" [0] [0] https://nlihc.org/coronavirus-and-housing-homelessness/national-eviction-moratorium https://nlihc.org/coronavirus-and-housing-homelessness/natio...
- jdhn 5y ago
  It blows my mind that the CDC can issue rent eviction moratoriums, and that this is completely legal.
yonran 5y ago
I don’t have a problem with the tools in the tax code to defer realization for capital gains taxes during a lifetime e.g. 1031 exchange, traditional 401(k) or IRA, in-kind redemption for ETFs, etc., so long as the taxes eventually do get paid on the gains. The real issue in my opinion is the loopholes in the tax code to avoid capital gains taxes completely e.g. step-up basis on death + $11.7 million estate and gift tax exclusion per person, $500k capital gains tax exclusion for sale of a home for a married couple (Section 121), Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts, Roth IRAs.

swiley 5y ago

That's a long way to say that Ketchum, Idaho has no jobs because the market can't afford workers.

pgodzin 5y ago

Of course the opposition to new housing is from existing homeowners whose property values benefit from increasing scarcity amidst sky-high demand. > In late May, dozens of people gathered in Ketchum’s town square to protest the lack of housing and support a new 56-unit affordable-housing complex that a developer wants to build downtown. Some residents oppose the project, which the city council is still weighing, saying it would shrink what limited parking there is and concentrate low-income housing in a single area.

benlivengood 5y ago

How much of increased housing costs are due to current increased cost of building materials for new construction? If there's one force that is more national than local it's the supply of construction materials. Construction labor is at least regional, if not national. There was also a significant dip in new construction during the pandemic which must have had an effect on pricing. Having built my own house ~15 years ago (I only contracted out earthwork, concrete finishing, trusses, and shingles) I am aware that construction materials are generally a small fraction of total cost, but labor can easily be half of the total cost. Finally there is probably an aspect of financial bubble happening as people try not to miss out on rising housing prices, willing to pay a steep premium to own housing the traditional way instead of through a mutual fund or similar investment. [*] https://www.cato.org/blog/how-us-trade-policy-contributes-our-insane-construction-materials-costs https://www.cato.org/blog/how-us-trade-policy-contributes-ou...

jrs235 5y ago

If workers can't afford housing, you'll have plenty of empty and available positions, even at $15 / hour. Especially if you want / need reliable (ABLE to reliably show up for shifts) workers. Let me break it down... Let's start with $15 an hour. Let's be generous and assume five 8 hour shifts per week (2080 hours per year: 5 shifts per week * 8 hours per shift * 52 weeks per year). That's $600 per week ($15 per hour * 5 shifts per week * 8 hours per shift). Or $31200 ($600 per week * 52 weeks) per year. Let's assume affordable housing is 30 miles away and takes an average of 1 hour to commute one way. That's 10 hours of commuting per week (5 shifts, 1 hour EACH way or 1 * 5 * 2) or 520 hours commuting per year (10 hours per week * 52 weeks per yr). The time commitment of the worker is 10 hours per shift (8 paid working, 2 unpaid commuting). The yearly time commitment is 2600 hours per year (2080 working, 520 commuting). So the effective hourly rate is $31200/yr / 2600 hours/yr which is $12 per hour. BUT! Commuting isn't free. Let's assume the worker owns a car in order to get to and from work. Let's round off the cost per mile (gas, wear and tear) to be 50 cents a mile. So the cost of commuting per shift is $30 (30 miles one way * 2 ways * $.50 / mile) or $7800 per year ($30 per shift times 5 shifts per week * 52 weeks per year)! SO! To have the $15 per hour job costs the worker $7800 per year and 2600 hours per year! So, ($31200 per year - $7800 per year) / 2600 hours = $23400 / 2600 hours = $9 per hour! $9 per hour! That $15 per hour job is competing with $9 per hour jobs that are closer and more local to affordable housing and giving thousands of hours per year back to the worker. Think about that...

effingwewt 5y ago
You can also add federal taxes, some states take an income tax as well. And this assumes no children, so no costs for child care. Throw that in the mix and it can actually cost some people money just to work. We need to fix the incentives when businesses would rather scream and close their doors than make less and pay a living wage for their location.
jrs235 5y ago
*giving :hundreds: of hours per year back to the worker.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

I wonder how often a high cost of living/housing prices employers out of markets. Surely Ketchum, ID is not the only town where this happened.

8bitsrule 5y ago

A couple of times in recent decades, North Dakota had an oil boom. The jobs were out in the middle of nowhere; available spaces in nearby small towns quickly filled. Somehow the people hiring managed to find hundreds of mobile homes for the workers to live in, and a location or two near the job site. OTOH, towns that want permanent workers better wise up.

slt2021 5y ago

housing prices are increased because Uncle Sam is printing money and buying up all the mortgages that are being underwritten by banks. Increased demand and zero % rates lead to increased demand for housing and increased prices.