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Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom (cont)

theguardian.com

21–30 of 133 posts

Re: Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom (cont)

#22
post #3

Anyone who didn't get a 20% raise this year lost money. As the fed pumped cash, the stock market gains kept the rich from feeling the inflation that is being handed to everybody else with a bow on it. For months everyone has naysayed the idea that money printing would have a negative effect, now just Google "inflation" news articles.

I was repeatedly downvoted for pointing this out on HN. In fact, ridiculed with "Good ol' trickle up economics" snark.

Re: Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom (cont)

#23
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation statistics are lies. Look at individual metrics in housing and food.

All food CPI is up 2.1% this year, housing of course is much more but that's what the article is about so where's the lie?

Prices up 2.1%, I would like to see the average package size change. Shrinkflation is happening to everything on the shelves.

Re: Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom (cont)

#24
> "The report’s Housing Wage is an estimate of the hourly wage full-time workers must earn to afford a rental home at HUD’s fair market rent without spending more than 30% of their incomes. Fair market rents are estimates of what a person moving today can expect to pay for a modestly priced rental home in a given area. The kind of home that can be rented for the fair market rent is in decent condition, but it is not luxury housing."

Basically, unless I am reading the chart wrong (https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/2021/Out-of-Reach_...) the price of a 1 bedroom home is in fact affordable to 50%+ of the population.

its kind of like duh, the average house is affordable to the average person, and people below that average (nearly half) would have to spend more than 30% of their income to pay for the average 1br by the very fact they are in the lower tier.

they also try to make it sound like 'unaffordable' means they can't ever pay those prices, they could, it would just take more of their take home.

Re: Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom (cont)

#25
post #17
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they haven’t. “According to Zillow, the typical value of U.S. homes is $269,039 as of January 2021, a 9.1% increase from January 2020. Between 1999 and 2021, the median price has more than doubled from $111,000 to $269,039.”

What about only including data from places people want to live? You can buy a house in South Dakota for 25,000, but that not useful information when looking at national housing inflation.

>What about only including data from places people want to live

Shouldn't the median sale account for this? If there's a buyer presumably somebody wants to live there, and if there are 1000 sales in CA but 10 in SD that would be accounted for as well.

Re: Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom (cont)

#26
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All food CPI is up 2.1% this year, housing of course is much more but that's what the article is about so where's the lie?

Prices up 2.1%, I would like to see the average package size change. Shrinkflation is happening to everything on the shelves.

package size is factored into inflation.

Re: Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom (cont)

#27
Living conditions for the working class will eventually equalise with that of Mexico. With the scale of immigration into the country, its inevitable. Labour rates will be driven down, and housing prices (in markets with supply restrictions) driven up.

This should at least be controlled with legal temporary migration and removal of birth citizenship (which very few Western countries have), instead of a free-for-all with a large criminal element.

Re: Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom (cont)

#28
post #4
post #3

Anyone who didn't get a 20% raise this year lost money. As the fed pumped cash, the stock market gains kept the rich from feeling the inflation that is being handed to everybody else with a bow on it. For months everyone has naysayed the idea that money printing would have a negative effect, now just Google "inflation" news articles.

>Anyone who didn't get a 20% raise this year lost money. but inflation (as measured by CPI) isn't anywhere close to 20%?

I have tons of anecdata suggesting worse…

I just filled up a propane tank, 3lbs of fuel was almost $10 whereas a year ago it was $5-$6

The price of a California burrito most places here is almost $10, they were closer to $7/$8 before pandemic started spiking beef prices

It’s getting harder and harder to keep the bill at Costco under $100

Uber/Lyft rides that used to be $10 cost $15-$20 during non-surge hours

And so on…

Re: Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom (cont)

#29
post #3

Anyone who didn't get a 20% raise this year lost money. As the fed pumped cash, the stock market gains kept the rich from feeling the inflation that is being handed to everybody else with a bow on it. For months everyone has naysayed the idea that money printing would have a negative effect, now just Google "inflation" news articles.

LOL now this is fearmongering at it's best (worst?). You don't have to count the number of articles to measure inflation (surely this is a joke, right?), instead you can go straight to the source to see that prices rose 0.9% in June and 0.5% in July. It's at 5.3% for the year[0]. Come on @Grakel, do better

[0]https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-consumer-prices-rose-...

Re: Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom (cont)

#30
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who needs facts when they have feelings?

What I feel is prices on everything in every store and online going up, while packaging shrinks. Who's doing your shopping? There's a big difference between facts and government published statistics.

I was just noticing the price of beans appears to have gone down. Perhaps you’re buying the wrong thing at the grocery.
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