I assume it’s accurate. Many comments say it’s not. If it’s not, feel free to provide conflicting charts.
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Rent prices and income compared in a live chart
- Thread starter Tenacious E_rivals41982
- Start date
It's a problem and it's largely due to illegal immigration.
Also related, Republican presidents not great with income increases….shocking I know. They have always been the party of corporate interests since Reagan
Working in the rental business I can tell you in our local market the biggest driving factor is section 8 housing. The amount the government pays for free housing in the last several years is mind blowing. And wether you choose to rent to section 8 people or not, the fact that you COULD receive that rent amount means that becomes the market value.
I asked gemini to give me the starting and ending stats. It’s a problem and I think more needs to be done, but if Gemini is right (always a risk I have not checked sources yet) your chart is definitely exaggerating both sides of the problem to make it look worse than it is.
I did it using both median and mean and did income by household and per capita to see if household labor participation played a role.
Net net at an individual level income has almost kept up with rent. The issue is we have way more single earner households now. Single moms in the inner city, more divorces, Gen X were kids in 1985 and that is a very small demographic so you less dependents, fewer young adults coupling up now and the like. So it might seem like rent is less affordable, but (again if this data is right) that is a function mostly of demographics.
Policy wise one could address this topic by making rent more affordable, or one could try to incentivize roommates/couples.
Final comment: I suspect in some metro areas the chart you showed is realistic - the Bay Area comes to mind.
| Metric | 1985 Nominal Baseline | 2025 Nominal Estimate | Multiple Factor | Net Nominal % Increase |
| MEDIANS | ||||
| Median Rent (Monthly) | $339 | $1,480 | 4.37x | 336.6% |
| Median Personal Income (Individual) | $11,010 | $47,200 | 4.29x | 328.7% |
| Median Household Income | $23,618 | $84,500 | 3.58x | 257.8% |
| MEANS & PER CAPITA | ||||
| Mean Rent (Monthly) | $375 | $1,720 | 4.59x | 358.7% |
| Mean Personal Income (Individual) | $15,320 | $70,100 | 4.58x | 357.6% |
| Mean Household Income | $29,066 | $119,500 | 4.11x | 311.1% |
| BEA Per Capita Personal Income | $14,771 | $76,328 | 5.17x | 416.7% |
Not my chart, but I indeed posted it. I figured it was susceptible to attack, but it does raise an interesting discussion.
I've got a couple of grandchildren, one who graduated from college in 2025 and one who will graduate next spring. The graduate has a job interning in a very difficult field to break in to, on Des Moines of all places. In spite of the fact they he makes enough money to live, he really doesn't make enough money to live the way he needs to...let me explain.....at this point in his life he should be maxing his 401/IRA, building an emergency fund and starting to build a career. But, he simply can't afford to pay rent - on a 1 BR apartment - pay utilities, eat, and generally do the things a 23 year old single male should be able to do.
Now, in reality, most of us were in this same position when we were in our first jobs at 23 years old.
Is it worse now? I don't know, I guess for some it is, for others not so much. I don't think you can generalize and put everyone into the same category. I have a friend whose son went into the Army directly out of HS. Not, the same life, to be sure, but that young man has housing, 3 meals a day, free medical care, a retirement plan, and the beginnings of a career. When I spoke with him recently, he's experiencing none of the economic problems of my grandson...nor the stress. Now, how they end up might be an entirely different story...
moral of the story...everybody is different...
Is your grandson experiencing problems the rest of us did not? I had a roomate until I got married at age 27 or so. Didn’t save any money the first year or two on the job. My savings was built over my lifetime and it started with one brick if you will.
It sure seems like today’s Tik tok world people want stuff to instantaneously drop in their lap.
What todays people pay more for in housing, they make up for with other modern day luxuries. Cell phones, cheap travel, dinners out, and other things young Ned probably couldn’t even dream of when he was 23.
Your grandson is going to do just fine.
for sure he'll do great in life...and no, he's got it no worse than I did at his age...in fact he's doing better than my wife and I did at that age.
We just met with our estate planner and my wife wants to leave the grandkids a substantial amount of money at some point in their lives. At this point I told them I don't want them to suffer, but AI do want them to struggle..Point of my post was simply to show that young people today are struggling...it would be better if they weren't but you are right, we had the same or similar problems at their age.
What's unique though, and which I didn't mention originally, these youngsters don't qualify for many of the benefits we're bestowing on undocumented migrants. Would seem fair to me that if taxpayers are footing the bills for non US citizens we should do the same, no more, but the same, for our own citizens
If you don't think boomers & politicians have screwed this generation of young people you're living in denial.
I think that depends on what time scale. On a long enough horizon everything will fail. Have the boomers set it up so that our particular generation fails? I don’t think so. I’m not ready to bet against these American people.
I admit that we are in a bit of a pickle with our financial situation as a country. We are at a crossroads, there’s absolutely no appetite for a doge type cut and spending so therefore we must grow our way out of it. I think that’s why you see the hyper scaler ramping up their expenses by sometimes 500%. We have no choice, but to grow our way out of our debt.
Can we do it? Jury is still out. But we either do it or we die. I’ll take the bet we do it.
So, illegal immigration is hurting the increase in income (by supressing wage increases?) or causing the rental costs to outpace income increases? How is that, specifically?
Boomers get blasted quite a bit on here.. you should watch a you tube video "did boomers kill the American dream" you might get a different flavor for the boomer experience from the '60s though today.
I'm not a boomer...silent generation (pre boomer). I can tell you that individual boomers had as little influence over what transpired during their lifetimes as you have now. Yea they had a vote and put in both democrats and republicans just like today....in fact the democrats held the house for a consecutive 40 years...
blaming the boomers for what happened in America from the 1960's until now is like blaming @lafayetetbear or @dpic73 for what is happening now..
Got any evidence that the cause (exclusive is implied based on your answers), but any evidence that the direct causation is primarily illegal immigration? Say, a direct trend pattern between illegal immigration and price increases? If they are so directly correlated, they should have similar peaks and valleys. Any actual evidence?
That's lucky for the 20%, but what about the 4 of 5 that will be leaving debt and chipped Hummels?
well, this is not for all prices, but the dallas fed did a study that directly correlated immigration to increased housing costs.
I do. And you declaring economics 101 only shows you don't really understand it. Otherwise, you would have acknowledged my comment about causation and another econ101 indicator of a direct relationship is the lag effect, and there is no effort to address. Illegal immigration and rental costs have a number of inconsistencies that can't be explained with a one liner. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-r...out-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/
Apparently, you'd be more accurate if you'd have declared US consumption of cheddar cheese is the cause for the consistent rate increases because they have a much stronger correlation.
Meaning, Im backhand explaining correlation and causation to you here, and you keep stating Econ 101 supply demand but have no evidence of the causation.In fact, most articles give 3-5 reasons why rental costs have gone up exponentially compared to income, but since you don't address that at all, we just have to assume your real reason is a dislike of "others". So all of that is pretty clear evidence you can say the words "econ101" but don't really understand it in depth to speak to nor defend your position.
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well, according to AI, "Rent costs have risen much faster than wages because housing supply cannot keep up with high demand, high mortgage rates trap people in rentals, and landlords face higher operating expenses that they pass on to tenants. General inflation, corporate ownership, and demographic shifts also push prices up faster than typical paychecks grow"
Exactly, glad you are onboard. I also found a similar worded AI response but to have a more rounded opinion, folks need to do a bit more QnA and find actual sources. Piggy is unable or unwilling to do just a little homework.
But both our high level AI research show about 6 reasons in there, and none of them say "illegal immigration". Only 1 of the 6 indicates demand vs supply, and it doesn't explicitly indicate illegal occupant demand. It also could be a reduction in supply with demand having a different vector, true? But piggy isn't even able to articulate that.
All Im asking for is a little "show your work" to come to an opinion, is that unreasonable?
it is not unreasonable.... but in that vein, did you see my post about the Dallss FED study? That study did conclude that illegal migration did cause housing prices to increase (the supply and demand argument)...not by a lot, but increase none the less.
Part of that growth plan includes growing population in USA.
Like them or not every economic study indicates that immigrants contribute to growing the economy.
Take NW Iowa.....the only county in that quarter of Iowa with a growing population is Buena Vista, home of storm lake.
Storm lake has meat packing plants that are largely manned by immigrants. Its hard work that locals simply cannot handle.
I live 30 miles away in a county that the census bureau projects as having zero people by 2050 on the current trend
It's safe,it's white,and it's dying.
Storm lake is booming,it's young and it's diverse,and it's still safe.
Japan has a very restrictive immigration stance...their population is shrinking fast..from 140 million to 90 million by 2050.
They have had economic malaise for over.a decade.
You are right, growth is the key to our survival...population growth.
Russia,china, Europe...all shrinking aging populations....long term issues ahead economically.
I did, and no doubt it has a small influence across the nation. There are also plenty of reports where it has the opposite effect esp considering the amount of the work force that is also illegal (some 15-23%), ergo are the really a net increase? But for the clown to present its "largely" the cause and then offer no evidence is dishonest at best, more likely being prejudice.
I've had a bee in my bonnet for the dishonest troll for a couple days so am just working him over on his uneducated posting. He is unable to defend eloquently, much less at all. I will grow bored with the sport eventually, till then, best to let him hang himself.
And short of incentivizing the existing population to have more babies, and since the incentive mostly likely gets the wrong demographics to reproduce more, the next best solution is to encourage immigration. Through polices that encourage legal and through policies that allow illegal to convert to legal through a harder more taxing transition since they opted for the illegal route. But give them a path regardless.
No one is against immigration. We are against illegal immigration.
We want a sensible immigration policy that brings in immigrants to help American citizens, not hinder. As it is, we had unfettered immigration that overran some communities and that is not fair to people who worked generations to build those communities.
I’m not denying the fact that some immigration is positive. Just make a system that makes it positive.
So true. And the 20% better set up some kind of trust or they will get picked clean by the ravens, eagles and vultures of our health care system. I watched so many wealthy people spend themselves down to title 19 eligibility when I worked in the rehab department of the swanky nursing home in Madison WI. They couldn’t believe it—literal insult added to injury.
Fair enough.
I believe the current administration policy has shrunk legal immigration also.
Let's find a compromise.
I believe the current administration policy has shrunk legal immigration also.
Let's find a compromise.
reasonable approach.....there's no question, or shouldn't be, that we need more people in order to grow our economy...neither trump's closed border or Biden's "open" (or, to appease some "less closed") border is the answer. There is a middle ground. And, there's a middle ground on deporting those illegally in the country now - we haven't found it yet: and there's a middle ground on whether everyone who comes in to the country should have a path to citizenship - and we haven't found that yet either.
But in order to find those middle grounds, our leaders in the government have to talk and work together, and we obviously haven't found that middle ground either.
I'd wager we could you and fatpiggy in a room, lock the door, and assign a task "come up with a reasonable plan for immigration taking into account the need for people, those in the country illegally and how we would allow/provide citizenship", within few hours, a day at most, you'd come up with a plan agreeable to both of you.
Let politics into the discussion and who controls the government and you end up where we are.
I'd agree with this, with one caveat. Currently, the 2 parties are not coming to the table equally on blame for this (or other govt failings).
Following orders from Trump, GOP kills immigration legislation
Congressional Republicans, at the behest of former president Trump, killed legislation to address the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. The bi-partisan Senate measure was scuttled on Feb. 5, never coming up for a full vote.
www.peoplesworld.org
Now historically they both are falling short, but both failing doesn't mean equally.
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I might disagree with you on this based on his? lack of substance and pond scum thin opinions on topics.
Take with grain of salt, from Gemini. (Denver in particular looks suspect to me)
Rent/income ratio. And mortgage/income ratio. Mortgage was interesting. 85 it was 12.5%, today only 6.5%. Homes went up quite a bit, but interest rates halved. It also depended where you lived.
Rent/income ratio. And mortgage/income ratio. Mortgage was interesting. 85 it was 12.5%, today only 6.5%. Homes went up quite a bit, but interest rates halved. It also depended where you lived.
| Metro Area | 1985 Rent / Inc. | Present Rent / Inc. | Rent Burden Shift | 1985 Mtg / Inc. | Present Mtg / Inc. | Mortgage Burden Shift |
| New York City | 24.0% | 40.0% | +16.0% pts (+67%) | 50.0% | 62.5% | +12.5% pts (+25%) |
| Seattle | 19.5% | 33.5% | +14.0% pts (+72%) | 33.5% | 44.0% | +10.5% pts (+31%) |
| Denver | 18.5% | 31.0% | +12.5% pts (+68%) | 33.5% | 36.5% | +3.0% pts (+9%) |
| Houston | 16.5% | 28.5% | +12.0% pts (+73%) | 28.5% | 25.0% | -3.5% pts (-12%) |
| Des Moines | 15.0% | 24.0% | +9.0% pts (+60%) | 26.5% | 23.0% | -3.5% pts (-13%) |
| Topeka | 14.5% | 23.0% | +8.5% pts (+59%) | 25.0% | 20.0% | -5.0% pts (-20%) |
| National Avg. | 19.5% | 30.2% | +10.7% pts (+55%) | 34.0% | 32.5% | -1.5% pts (-4%) |
On mortgage burden shift... here's a catch. Increase in size of down payment:
| Down Payment Tier | 1985 Cash Required | 1985 % of Annual Income | Present Cash Required | Present % of Annual Income | Change (% Points) | Shift |
| 20% Standard | $16,560 | 70.1% (~8.4 mos) | $83,380 | 100.0% (12.0 mos) | +29.9% pts | +43% increase |
| 10% Typical First-Time | $8,280 | 35.1% (~4.2 mos) | $41,690 | 50.0% (6.0 mos) | +14.9% pts | +43% increase |
| 3.5% FHA Minimum | $2,898 | 12.3% (~1.5 mos) | $14,590 | 17.5% (~2.1 mos) | +5.2% pts | +43% increase |
Keep in mind, the original posit was in regards to rental prices vs income. I believe you are just pointing to the number of people who can't afford a mortgage and are instead renting. Which also increases the demand. And how does that track with overall population increase.
My first question.... can an illegal immigrant get a standard home loan through a bank?... little searching, seems the answer is yes, but its pretty hard for a number of reasons, but...SSN sharing is a thing.
How to get a home loan in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant
Undocumented immigrants can have difficulty getting a mortgage, but they have options. Learn which home loans undocumented immigrants can qualify for.
finance.yahoo.com
I read a while back about the illegal immigrant angle. Think there were a few pertinent studies out there. Was a really small effect on prices. (like < 5% IIRC) Skeptical the explanatory power would be that high anyway.Keep in mind, the original posit was in regards to rental prices vs income. I believe you are just pointing to the number of people who can't afford a mortgage and are instead renting. Which also increases the demand. And how does that track with overall population increase.
My first question.... can an illegal immigrant get a standard home loan through a bank?... little searching, seems the answer is yes, but its pretty hard for a number of reasons, but...SSN sharing is a thing.
How to get a home loan in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant
Undocumented immigrants can have difficulty getting a mortgage, but they have options. Learn which home loans undocumented immigrants can qualify for.
Agree people not be able to afford a down-payment are more likely to keep renting and thus keep rentals higher perhaps.
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