I’m not from USA, (so only educated guess whether statistics lie), but I wager that millions could not afford homes then and millions can afford a home today.
first graph has very sharp peaks and dips, but please note that the y axis has values from 62 till 70.
Based on this I would say that it would be misleading to state “in 1980 people could afford homes and today we can’t afford”
But I can see a lot of “outrage” in US media.
My unrequested speculation: more people got college and university degrees, but that did not change their ability to own a home. (But it did change their expectation, especially how pricey degrees seem to be in USA)
You're conflating 'having a home' with home ownership, even though the GP talks about the hassles of dealing with landlords and therefore clearly includes renting.
Rent used to be a lot cheaper in the US. I'm not sure about the 1980s, but in the 1980s I had a spacious room in a nice San Francisco neighborhood for $300/month.
Median family income in 1980 was $21k. Also San Francisco back then may not have been the San Francisco of today. So if you factor in inflation and increase in desirability and local wages, this would make for a more meaningful comparison.
I’m not from USA, (so only educated guess whether statistics lie), but I wager that millions could not afford homes then and millions can afford a home today.
My most minimal effort attempt at stats follows.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/184902/homeownership-rat....
> …in 2023 the proportion of households occupied by owners declined to 65.7 percent…
Also:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeownership_in_the_United_...
(Shows that it was bellow 70% in 1989)
first graph has very sharp peaks and dips, but please note that the y axis has values from 62 till 70.
Based on this I would say that it would be misleading to state “in 1980 people could afford homes and today we can’t afford”
But I can see a lot of “outrage” in US media. My unrequested speculation: more people got college and university degrees, but that did not change their ability to own a home. (But it did change their expectation, especially how pricey degrees seem to be in USA)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_th... (percentage of educated population had has risen steadily since 1950)