Everyone Is Talking About the ‘Affordability Crisis.’ It Can’t Be Solved.

Trump and Mamdani both campaigned on affordability, but the issue is amorphous and poorly defined

By Greg Ip. Excerpts:

"Like the climate crisis or the crisis of democratic legitimacy, the affordability crisis has become an umbrella term for countless loosely connected phenomena."

"Like those other crises, this one defies definition and thus resolution."

"Inflation reached 9% in mid-2022 but was down to 3% in September."

"Real personal income was up 2.3% in the year through August, and real hourly wages climbed 0.8% in the year through September, both in line with the 19-year average."

"Because there is always something going up in price or someone whose incomes are suffering, affordability is an especially potent issue"

"There is nothing any elected official can do to “solve” the affordability crisis reliably."

"For prices merely to stop rising for a year (i.e., an inflation rate of zero), would probably require a deep recession."

"Housing affordability is now slightly below its pre-2008 average, according to the National Association of Realtors, so room for improvement is limited."

"New York isn’t expensive because of public transit. When the fare rises to $3 in January, it will have climbed an average of 1.7% annually over the past decade, below the city’s inflation rate."

"New York rents have gone up a lot recently, while they have stabilized or fallen in other cities thanks to a surge of supply."