Yup. Historically recessions are very profitable for the rich, as they are able to buy assets (property, stock, etc) at vastly deflated prices because they had

Yup. Historically recessions are very profitable for the rich, as they are able to buy assets (property, stock, etc) at vastly deflated prices because they had cash or equivalent before the recession began. Lower income people just lose their jobs, and as a product often have to sell their homes at deflated prices to the rich people who aren't suffering in any way from the recession. Before anyone mentions the rich losing money on the stock market: That only matters if you _have_ to sell during the recession. If you're rich you don't have to sell anything, so while you may be having to liquidate your life savings and sell your home for a fraction of what you saved, and a fraction of what you paid, none of that impacts the people with money. Re: 80k, that is _super_ region specific. On 80k in the SF Bay Area, or NYC, or Paris, etc an income like that is never going to give you home ownership - you wouldn't be able to save enough to make a down payment, and even if you had the funds, a bank wouldn't give you a loan large enough to buy anything. Take SF Bay Area salaries: people may be talking (bragging?) about 1-200k salaries, but you cannot look at that in isolation, average rent in SF is $3.76/sqft vs say $1.60/sqft in Atlanta. So a super dumb multiplier comparison would say $80k salary in Atlanta would be maybe $188k in SF, despite 188k appearing absurdly high.