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Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

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Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#81

Post by throwaway713 »

baddox wrote: post #37
lkrubner wrote: post #20

From previous: " In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white…

In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…

> All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent

Ah, so you want to live in San Francisco

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#82

Post by paulddraper »

dvdhnt wrote: post #79
paulddraper wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also pretty shortsighted to underrate human advances in adapting their abilities.

That’s not the point. What good is the ability to grow enough food for everyone if we arbitrarily withhold it from them? I’d argue patching a system that values the very few over the many is not an advancement.

It's hardly a solved problem, but it's getting much better.

Wordwide undernourishment rates went from 19% to 11% from 1991 to 2015. [1]

Another couples decades of human progress and starvation will be rather rare. :fingerscrossed:

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#83

Post by stale2002 »

dvdhnt wrote: post #44
Robotbeat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is ridiculous. Wages have never been higher, and there have never been more people. There are incredibly strong network effects from having more people (in cities, etc), and the benefit of international trade relies on more people to enable better specialization. All kinds of incredibly important markets, like semiconductors (including computer chips, solar power) and even mining rely on having a lot of people t…

I think it’s pretty arrogant to conclude that the human race is somehow exempt from the concept of a carrying capacity. Wages are higher because of inflation, the floor has moved, and it’s relatively meaningless as the cost of rent, healthcare, and food has greatly outpaced such growth. To put it bluntly, your semiconductors are insignificant if we can’t house and feed our population.

> To put it bluntly, your semiconductors are insignificant if we can’t house and feed our population.

I am glad you brought this up.

Because you should be aware that we are at an all time low in the entire history of the world, for things like percentage of the world living in extreme poverty and hunger.

Yes, it very much is about feeding and housing the population. And the facts are that we are solving those problems, better than any other point in time.

Just go read ANY statistic at all. Go read the UN world health metrics, poverty metrics, hunger metrics. It doesn't matter. They all show massive gains, compared to even 20-30 years ago.

We still have a ways to go, in order to solve all the worlds problems. But this fact doesn't take away from the other true fact that the world has made massive gains compared to the past, and this is recent history (IE, comparing the world to 20-30 years ago).

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#84

Post by quickthrower2 »

nitwit005 wrote: post #14

It's almost as if you could afford more of something, like housing, if you spent less on another thing, like children.

Moreover you tend to need more space, and therefore a more expensive house, if you have children.

Also without children you can live somewhere regardless of worries like school catchments.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#85

Post by psandersen »

baddox wrote: post #37
lkrubner wrote: post #20

From previous: " In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white…

In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…

I think you have to consider downside risk, if the economy goes bad or you lose your job how easily can you make rent and survive? At 75% you have much less margin than at 22%.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#86

Post by shados »

throwaway713 wrote: post #81
baddox wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…

> All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent Ah, so you want to live in San Francisco

There IS a reason why rent in high cost areas are so, well, costly.

If you go to NYC or SF and make 400k/year after tax, who cares if housing costs you 300k out of that. Especially if you're buying, in which case you can get part of your money back once you sell.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#87

Post by dvdhnt »

paulddraper wrote: post #82
dvdhnt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not the point. What good is the ability to grow enough food for everyone if we arbitrarily withhold it from them? I’d argue patching a system that values the very few over the many is not an advancement.

It's hardly a solved problem, but it's getting much better. Wordwide undernourishment rates went from 19% to 11% from 1991 to 2015. [1] Another couples decades of human progress and starvation will be rather rare. :fingerscrossed: [1] https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment

The numbers are positive and I respect your optimism.

I have nothing to add but wanted to say that.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#88

Post by manfredo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45
baddox wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…

> I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent No, you wouldn’t. As income goes higher, long-distance transportation becomes (a) more comfortable and (b) smaller as a fraction of income. De-camping to Washington State and commuting to San Francisco doesn’t make sense at $200,000; it does at $1 or 2 million.

I'm not sure I follow. Assuming the $1 million is post tax, it equates to $250,000 post tax and nearly entirely disposable income. Compared to, say, someone making $200,00 post tax and spending only 25% of that on rent it is strictly better. The point that the above commenter is making is that if the percentage of income spent on rent is higher, but the purchasing power adjusted income is higher it can cancel out.

I'm not sure what transportation has to do with this. Someone could increase their commute time to reduce rent, but that's the case regardless of income.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#89

Post by shados »

toasterlovin wrote: post #49
pitt1980 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the ratio of career gains that go to those working in a few expensive cities, even if this is largely selection effects, I'm not sure this paints a very rosy picture of the society we're creating. I'm reminded of how few heads of EU states are parents https://www.marketwatch.com/story/do-childless-leaders-mean-...

This stage of the demographic transition is a huge problem, IMO. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a ratchet (as in, it only moves in one direction): Basically, two incomes are useful, so both people in a relationship pursue careers. Now they have more money to compete on the housing market. This seems like a good move, so others follow suit. At first this is largely a win for people who pursue this r…

Yup. It widens the income gap significantly. The problem with anything that raises average income, is that people without average income are worse of.

If families have at most 1 earner, then the worse case scenario is to have 0 earners, being one down. If most families have 2 though, when you fall to 0, you're much, much worse off compared to the norm.

People with kids vs people without. People with college degrees in high demand profession vs people without. Basically, every time we push people in drove toward a more efficient "lifestyle", the worse off people who don't are.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#90

Post by anoncoward111 »

There's correlation here, but likely not causation.

The real underlying cause in the drop in birth rates is an increase in working hours, an increase in commuting times, an increase in college tuition and health care costs, and also an increase in divorce rates.

These days, even getting married is an expensive financial arrangement. Having kids is just another layer on that.

Housing prices have increased because of cheap loans and supply-restrictive regulations.

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