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Now compare inflation adjusted income with the cost to rent a one bedroom apartment. That’s been trending down since the mid 80s. As in housing is getting more

by TylerE 2y ago

Now compare inflation adjusted income with the cost to rent a one bedroom apartment. That’s been trending down since the mid 80s. As in housing is getting more expensive relatively

ajross 2y ago
> Now compare inflation adjusted income with the cost to rent a one bedroom apartment And now we're doing goalpost motion. This is how this always goes. Indeed, some things are more expensive and some things are less expensive. And that can change across regions and subeconomies, and even demographically to the extent that different groups spend in different ways. And this is interesting and important. But it's absolutely not about "inflation" or "wages" and if you come back from an incorrectly-stated argument about inflation/affordability/whatever by saying "OK fine but this is actually about housing policy", you just look silly. The fact that housing is expensive in some markets isn't a refutation that people are making more money, it just isn't. EDIT: But in fact FRED is great, so I generated your chart for you showing the ratio of the CPI urban rent metric to nominal (not "real" this time) hourly earnings: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qtNi https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qtNi And.. you're kinda wrong here too. It's true that the chart is going upwards, but only by about 8-9% since 2006 (the earliest date where we have both data points). And very notably: 1. Most of the growth was from 2011-2018 or so, not a recent phenomenon at all 2. There was a huge dip during the pandemic (because of assistance programs, it's the same effect I mentioned upthread) that we've only just recovered from in the last few months. The recent rapid rise of "rent costs as a fraction of income" is just taking back all the boon people got earlier. 3. It's actually levelled off since 2023. Again, there's data to this stuff, and it doesn't support your position.

by TylerE 2y ago

Now compare inflation adjusted income with the cost to rent a one bedroom apartment. That’s been trending down since the mid 80s. As in housing is getting more expensive relatively

ajross 2y ago

> Now compare inflation adjusted income with the cost to rent a one bedroom apartment And now we're doing goalpost motion. This is how this always goes. Indeed, some things are more expensive and some things are less expensive. And that can change across regions and subeconomies, and even demographically to the extent that different groups spend in different ways. And this is interesting and important. But it's absolutely not about "inflation" or "wages" and if you come back from an incorrectly-stated argument about inflation/affordability/whatever by saying "OK fine but this is actually about housing policy", you just look silly. The fact that housing is expensive in some markets isn't a refutation that people are making more money, it just isn't. EDIT: But in fact FRED is great, so I generated your chart for you showing the ratio of the CPI urban rent metric to nominal (not "real" this time) hourly earnings: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qtNi https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qtNi And.. you're kinda wrong here too. It's true that the chart is going upwards, but only by about 8-9% since 2006 (the earliest date where we have both data points). And very notably: 1. Most of the growth was from 2011-2018 or so, not a recent phenomenon at all 2. There was a huge dip during the pandemic (because of assistance programs, it's the same effect I mentioned upthread) that we've only just recovered from in the last few months. The recent rapid rise of "rent costs as a fraction of income" is just taking back all the boon people got earlier. 3. It's actually levelled off since 2023. Again, there's data to this stuff, and it doesn't support your position.