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Ramblings of a Boomer, and the horror of Rent Burden [1]

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Date: 2023-06-29  

Rent Burden – is defined as spending more than 30% of gross income on housing. Ok I don’t know anyone in the last couple of decades who could keep their rent under 30%... it’s a nice thought. But what caught my eye recently was articles with headlines like “ 11 cities that require a Six Figure Salary to afford rent” basically 11 cities where you need over 100,000 annual salary to afford a rent on a one bedroom, because nothing is less than 30% of their monthly pay.

(My opinion)

No, I don’t believe the primary cause is due to lack of building, or population growth, its not greed of mom and pop landlords – its corporate purchases of AirB&B (my city has more than 4000 listing in downtown alone, and we are not that big a city). Its corporations buying residential property and turning them into instruments to trade on the market… these last two have been taking housing off the market at large rates. Add in the cost of materials, and covid and other factors that slowed down building of new homes, the lack of lower/middle end housing being built in favor of McMansions and high-end apartments… and you have a perfect storm of housing issues. The other thing I see is folks are concentrating in cities, creating population boost, caused by loss of population in more rural areas. But this is population shift vs growth.

Those 11 cities are Boston, Miami, Honolulu, Bridgeport, New York, and most of the major cities in California. Also saw a poll on how 50% of folks in California are thinking of moving, because of cost – the polls note that the folks love living in California but can’t afford to stay.

What I see are young professionals with college loans, who can’t afford to live in cities – this is going to damage our economic engine, those kids are going to move somewhere, and it looks more and more like it is out of the country. Also, if you need to take more than 200,000 in college loans to become a doctor – and doctor salaries are being frozen, and residencies only pay 68,000 in Boston(one of the cities on the list!) – who is going to become a doctor? Only kids from wealthy families are going to be able to afford to become a doctor. Residency doesn’t cover rent+loans anymore …which is going to drive smart kids away from those majors. If you thought, there was a shortage of doctors now… just wait. Sorry about the ramble, but I still see even on this site – I worked so hard, kids these day can …no salaries haven’t changed in the last couple of decade – the kids are making what you made at their age, but the rent and college are out of these world prices, no the past generations didn’t face the problems this generation are facing. They don’t have pensions, they don’t have fully covered medical insurance from employers – many are working full time jobs but not as employees and have no benefits. Rent is more than my generation paid for buying a house. Cheap houses in my area hover around ½ million. The rent on a 300sq studio is 1200 a month, no utilities included. Min wage in my city doesn’t cover rent – and its 15$ an hour much higher than a lot of areas. And my city didn’t make the list ..

Just a rant, no solutions – just a response to the headlines on how many cities require a salary of 100,000 just to live the life I had fresh out of college.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/29/2178365/-Ramblings-of-a-Boomer-and-the-horror-of-Rent-Burden

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