Image of the day: the increased cost of homeownership in US metro areas
Elsie Peng, GS Research. Summary by Jared Bernstein.
A theme I've tried to repeat to the point of annoyance in the last year is that YES Americans have gotten richer in the last 25 years, but ALSO rising housing costs have eaten a lot of that growing wealth.
The graph below is a brilliant way to visualize that principle.
Even after controlling for rising wages, the cost of homeownership in the first year has increased for every income quintile. And it's increased by ~50 percent for low- and middle-income Americans.
Put too briefly: Buying your first house is 50 percent harder than it used to be.