Tag Archives: costs

Affordability and cost of living affected voting; how will elected candidates address housing?

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Cost of living appeared to be a big motivation for how Americans voted in the 2026 elections. Here is one summary of polling data:

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Most voters say the economy or the state of democracy is the top issue facing the country, with the cost of living and government corruption weighing heavily on many Americans’ minds as they cast a ballot in Tuesday’s midterm elections. The poll also signals a strong desire for Congress to take a more forceful role in checking the presidency.

Given these sentiments, what will politicians now do about housing? It is not the only expensive or costly items voters care about; see concerns about gas prices or groceries or utility bills. But it is a persistent and important concern. It is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, line item in household budgets. It is tied to all sorts of other life opportunities and outcomes. Good housing at a reasonable cost is something people (read voters) want.

Some directions we might see in the coming months:

-More statewide efforts to address local zoning issues. If individual communities can reject housing, can states allow more situations where housing can be built regardless of local concerns?

-More federal monies funneled toward helping people obtain housing. This could take different forms but it could help people purchase homes or find rentals.

-More incentives for builders and developers. What could help them provide cheaper housing? What could help them build more units?

-Resources for redeveloping spaces. If there are properties not living up to their potential (whether they are residential, commercial, or institutional), money or changed policies or something else might spur turning them into needed housing.

-More agreement that the federal government should step in or should address housing needs. Public housing may not be popular but local governments are not always open to big housing change. Who can help address the logjam of housing needs?

These are not very specific as there are multiple opinions and options.

At the same time, curbing inflation and affecting the price of everyday goods would be welcomed by many but still does not get at the fundamental issue many Americans face: how can I find decent housing at a reasonable price? People want action, not just a lot of possibilities.

Trending towards children as “luxury goods” in the United States?

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One recent data analysis suggests those in the top 1% are more likely to have 3 or more children:

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In an analysis of the Federal Reserve’s recent Survey of Consumer Finances, Mike Konczal, vice president of policy and research at the left-leaning nonprofit Economic Security Project, found that 49 percent of U.S. families in the top 1 percent of incomes had three or more children, compared with 40 to 43 percent for most other income groups.

The same pattern held for the top 1 percent of earners by net worth; 50 percent of Americans in that group had three or more children.

This does not necessarily line up with the number of children Americans say they want to have:

Overall, Americans want an average of 2.7 children; they actually end up having an average of 1.6.

What might this lead to?

Haspel put it simply. “You don’t want children to be a luxury good,” he said.

This reminds me of sociologist Viviana Zelizer’s book Pricing the Priceless Child where she argues children shifted around the turn of the twentieth century from being economically valuable to emotionally valuable. Could we then see this as a continuation of a long process?

The article discusses policy implications. Multiple countries have tried financial incentives to promote adults having more children. Others argue it would take a larger reordering of the whole system to help potential parents. Is there anything that actually works right now on a broad scale?

And if this is the way it is playing out in people’s lives, at what point does the ideal number of children shift significantly? As noted above, there is a gap between how many children people have versus how many they want. What might happen to that gap in the coming years? Or what does that gap – hopes that are not realized – turn into?

Regretting buying a house when it is “just what a person does”

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Americans generally promote homeownership. Owning a home might prove to be an unsatisfying experience:

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“We have two kids, two full-time jobs. We don’t even have time to talk about the repairs we need to make or what we should do,” she says. “We don’t make nearly enough to hire a house manager or nanny or anything like that, so even when things do go wrong, we don’t have time to figure out how to handle it or even who we would need to hire to outsource it.” A house manager may sound like a luxury (and it is). But the share of couples with children in which both parents work full time is now 52 percent, up from 31 percent in 1975. When both parents work outside of the home, the labor of taking care of the home, in ways large and small, doesn’t simply disappear…

Thomas, in Seattle, echoes this sentiment. He was in his late 30s when he bought, feeling that it was “just what a person does.”…

So, sure. He, in true millennial parlance, “did the thing.” But what did he lose in the process?

This is a common refrain in so many of the stories I’ve heard about homeownership: We gave up the things that made our lives meaningful in order to have the thing we thought we were supposed to want…

A house is meant to be the foundation of stability and safety in our lives. Instead, ours is a high-pitched stress alarm.

Owning a house does require maintenance and resources. This has always been true. Even newer homes that might appear to require few repairs might need a lot of time to maintain.

So what has changed that the work that goes with homeownership is problematic? A few ideas based on this article:

  1. A cost/benefit analysis approach to life is an interesting way to live. Is this everything about being efficient and opportunity costs? People today have some different ideas about how they would like to use their time and what they find meaningful.
  2. There are more older homes for people to purchase. Many homes have survived decades. The single-family tract homes built in the postwar suburban boom decades are largely still around. They may need substantial repairs. Our standards for what is needed in homes – certain appliances, how kitchens should look and operate, great rooms, etc. – are now different.
  3. American society as a whole may have shifted toward consumer goods that should be great or are broken and disposable. How much maintenance can we do with smartphones or appliances or vehicles or homes? How much patience do we have for repairs and restoring and preserving when it is easier for many items to simply replace?
  4. The high cost of homeownership influences all of this. If people are going to make such a significant financial investment (and also expect certain financial returns), any decisions about or additional resources needed are notable. Buy a house, even with help, in a really expensive housing market like Boston and Seattle and it is frustrating when that really expensive housing is difficult to maintain.

Thinking further, I could imagine homeownership that requires no maintenance through either (1) built-in repair and maintenance services from the beginning (factor it into the purchase and mortgage costs) and/or (2) switching homes regularly to avoid major repairs (similar to how cars have points where costly repairs are likely such as 60,000 miles or 100,000 miles).

When “everyone is chasing water” in the suburbs

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Suburban communities in Arizona are trying to make plans for supplying water in future decades. This could come with significant price hikes:

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To officials, Queen Creek is a model of how to confront the Southwest’s water woes head-on. The city expects to ultimately spend $730 million to tap into faraway groundwater, insulating themselves from drought for decades to come.

But a proposed “water resource fee” to fund the project has brought furious pushback from the highest water users in town, in a conservative place where leaders pride themselves on lowering taxes. It’s also renewed long-standing tensions over whether Queen Creek is expanding too fast for its resources, as city officials say they expect their population to nearly double by around 2050.

Other Southwest metropolises are facing similar questions about how to keep growing in arid places where water is scarce and getting more so. Arizona’s desert cities are in an especially tough position because they hold more junior water rights than other cities that draw on the Colorado River, such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Diego…

The average single-family home would pay an extra $57 or $138 a month once the water fee is fully phased in, officials said, depending on the details of their usage…

Incorporated in 1989 as an agricultural community of just a couple thousand people, the city’s population has grown to about 90,000, and the water issue stoked doubts among some longtime residents that the rapid change was good for them and the town.

Rapid suburban growth presents a particular set of challenges, including establishing local infrastructure that can meet the current and future needs of the community. Water is essential to daily life but is not as easy to secure in some places compared to others.

While it sounds like current residents and officials are wrestling with how to pay for current and future needs, what might this do to forecasted suburban growth? Would a community turn down growth because of not having enough water? Or would people attracted by cheaper housing here say no to a house because of water prices or water uncertainty? Would growth in a metropolitan region significantly shift toward communities that have secured future water and prices?

This applies to water in Arizona but it might also apply to other community needs. If gas and electricity prices are higher because of power needs and grid concerns. If prices suddenly spike for constructing roads, bridges, and highways. A need for internet equipment but that material is not available. And so on.

The bigger picture issue might be this: the price of a house is important for Americans. This story discusses water and hints that the monthly costs of owning a home might significantly increase. For these homeowners in Arizona, can they predict water prices five or ten years down the road? The house might look reasonable now but utility bills can cause a lot of people problems.

Considering the total cost of the American Dream

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How much money does a resident of the United States need to achieve all of the American Dream? Investopedia released a new estimate last week:

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Eight common milestones – buying a house, buying a car, having two children and sending them to college, having a wedding, retiring, paying for heathcare, owning pets, and vacationing once a year – now costs the average American a staggering $5.3 million…

Owning a home is now the most costly pillar of the American dream, the median price of a single-family home totaling to more than $420,000 and a 30-year mortgage averaging at 6.32 percent, the report found…

Owning a car is the second-biggest cost, the study showed. Keeping two cars costs about $1.2 million, which includes insurance, maintenance, registration and fuel for 15,000 miles per year. 

On one hand, the total number is helpful information. The headline figure is sure to catch attention: $5.3 million?! How many people could afford this? Houses and cars are expensive, even if Americans think they should aspire to own a home and multiple vehicles.

At the same time, Investopedia notes that this figure is for a lifetime. It may be more useful to look at incomes in comparison to this total cost:

A single paycheck won’t come close to covering it. A full-time worker with a bachelor’s degree earns a median of about $3.6 million from age 25 to 64, according to Investopedia’s analysis of Census Bureau data, which doesn’t account for income taxes. Add 20 years of the average Social Security retirement benefit, $2,071 a month, and that worker reaches about $4.1 million, roughly $1.2 million short of the American Dream.

So why not lead with something like “Estimated American earnings for a lifetime not keeping up with costs for the American Dream”? Not as enticing a headline but keeping in mind that these are estimates and summary data, this headline might be more helpful to people. They might think: “If I have a typical job after getting a college degree, I may have to revise how much of the American Dream I could have or find ways to save money or ways to generate more income.”

Thinking about the numbers and beyond could lead to productive conversations about what American Dream is possible or how to help more people reach the American Dream they might be expecting.

What counts as a “simple answer” for a social issue?

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With numerous social issues or social problems under discussion by the media, there are no shortage of answers provided. But, if someone says they have a “simple answer,” is it really that simple? Take this example from the Chicago Tribune editorial board in regard to the high price of new cars in the United States:

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The simple answer is that U.S. automakers decided the best way to combat the rising costs of unionized labor, which has secured massive gains, and ballooning material expenses was to chase the higher profit margins that come from the bigger SUVs, now the vehicle of choice for a broad swath of Americans.

We’d also add that decades of protectionist policies in the U.S. auto industry and a lack of fresh competition have not exactly been to the advantage of American consumers.

Simple answers might be satisfying. Few people probably want to pay such high prices for new cars. If there is a simple answer, this seems to get us closer to finding a solution.

But, the answer provided above may not be so simple (even though that is the claim. The first paragraph has multiple pieces triggering each other. Higher labor costs and paying more materials led to a particular decision by automakers. Why that decision and not others? What other options did they consider? And this all took place over at least a few years.

The second paragraph then adds an additional factor at work: policy choices that led to limited competition among automakers. These also unfolded over time and in particular contexts.

Is this a simple answer? It doesn’t seem to be so to me. There are multiple moving pieces. This all took time to develop.

Say others then enter the conversation. There are plenty of people with vested interests in this question. Someone says, “No, really, I have just one thing that needs to be changed,” and someone else says, “It is actually a difficult and nuanced situation and we cannot make any progress unless we acknowledge that first.”

Tackling big social issues is often hard. I’m not sure offering simple solutions – at least, making that rhetorical move, even if the diagnosis or solution offered is not really simple – is helpful.

In a country with so much driving, rising numbers of car repossessions are consequential

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If the number of car repossessions is headed up this year, this affects not just economic sectors but the many lives of people living in a country where having a car is necessary for daily life:

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The number of seized cars hit a 14-year high of 2.7 million in 2024, according to data from the Recovery Database Network (RDN), which processes around 90pc of all requests from lenders for repossessions.

Kevin Armstrong, editor of CU Repossession, an industry publication, expects the total will hit three million this year based on current trends, only just shy of the 3.2 million peak seen in 2009…

High levels of car repossessions are a threat to the economy in several ways. For lenders, repossessions usually mean losses given that only around one in three cars tied to bad loans are being recovered.

For borrowers who do get their cars repossessed, they are often losing their way to get to work and continue supporting themselves. Their credit rating will also get hammered.

Many Americans may like to drive but most need to drive. To get to work, school, the grocery store, to have goods delivered to their residence requires driving. In many places, there are no alternatives. To pursue the goals Americans want to pursue – homeownership, pursue success, etc. – requires driving.

Driving has always had costs. A single commuting trip may not seem to cost much but put together the costs of maintenance, insurance, fuel, and the indirect costs of pollution and time used (among others) and the price of driving adds up. For those with less money or fewer resources, driving can consume a higher percentage of a budget but the rest of the budget requires costly driving.

Given this, why not promote policies that help more Americans secure reliable and affordable vehicles? Those with more resources could buy vehicles with more features but why not help average residents have a car? Because Americans value homeownership, policies over the decades have helped make this opportunity available to more people. Thirty year loans. Government backup on mortgages. Programs intended to help people find housing. Could a similar thing be done for vehicles?

The percent of income Cook County residents pay to own their home

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How much does it cost to be a homeowner in Cook County?

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Homeownership expenses — including typical monthly mortgage payments, homeowners and mortgage insurance and property taxes — accounted for 29.2% of the average income earned by a Cook County resident as of the middle of this year, up from the 23.2% historical average based on data collected between 2005 to 2025, according to ATTOM, a national property data provider.

That is lower than the 33.7% national average and slightly higher than the 28% typically recommended by mortgage lenders, the data shows.

For the average Chicago resident, 42% of their mortgage payment is for expenses such as property taxes and insurance, marking it the fourth-highest share in major markets across the country, according to Andy Walden, head of mortgage and housing market research for Intercontinental Exchange, a data and financial technology firm. This is in large part, he said, because of property taxes.

This particular article suggests these costs are high for those who want to start a family; they may be able to purchase a home but there is not much left over after that point. The figures above help provide context for the 29.2% homeownership cost:

  1. This is higher than the average in the past. Homeowners in Cook County are now paying more per month than previously.
  2. The figure it higher than the 28% lenders might recommend.
  3. But the Cook County percentage is lower than the national percentage.
  4. And out of that overall percentage, Chicagoans tend to pay more for property taxes and insurance.

And a little more context: the homeownership rate in Cook County is about 62.5%.

All interesting information. Owning a home takes resources for purchasing it and maintaining it. The same lending practices that make it possible to get a mortgage for 30 years also mean costs for that long. But could the issue be something different: the costs of having children? How have those costs changed over time?

The Chicago area is often regarded as having a medium cost of living. Big cities in the Northeast and West cost more, places in the South and Midwest cost less. People living in these different contexts adjust. With the relative costs of living, how much does it differ to raise children in each place?

Homeownership is one of the biggest financial investments that a person or household will make. How many Americans now experience or believe that pursuing homeownership, a vital part of the American Dream, impedes their ability to pursue having kids?

HOA and condo association fees as part of growing mortgage costs

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Part of the rising mortgage costs in the United States is due to fees residents pay to homeowners’ and condo associations:

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Rising home insurance premiums and homeowners association fees have also contributed to growing monthly expenses. The median annual cost of property insurance increased by 5.3 percent last year, the Census survey found, with bigger increases for larger homes. Nearly a quarter of all U.S. homeowners paid fees to a condo or homeowners association last year, at a median cost of $135. In Nevada, Florida and Arizona, 45 to 50 percent of households paid such a fee.

The Census report has more details. Where do more residents pay association fees?

Some states like Arizona, Florida, and Nevada that typically attract a lot of retirees to planned communities had higher proportions of homeowners who reported paying condo/HOA fees.

Others with among the smallest shares: Maine, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

The prevalence of these associations differs quite a bit across contexts. And even within places with more associations, some people may more than others:

The amount of condo and HOA fees differed widely between and within states. In 2024, about 5.6 million or 26% of homes paid less than $50 a month and about 3 million homes paid more than $500 a month.

The national median (half were less and half more) monthly fee was $135. But a large share of homeowners in some states — most notably New York (64%) — reported paying more than $500. So did about half of homeowners in the District of Columbia and in Hawaii. 

These fees could be going up for multiple reasons:

  1. Increased repair and maintenance costs. Replacing roofs or maintaining common areas or other regular duties of these associations cost more, just as almost everything costs more in recent years.
  2. Increased insurance costs. As homeowner’s insurance goes up, so would insurance for associations and larger buildings.
  3. With the cost of current needs going up, this could also affect projections about the future. As associations think about their reserves and future outlays, they may need more to keep up with in order to have a required and/or prudent amount on hand.

It may be difficult to reduce these costs easily as these associations have specific responsibilities to residents.

“With America’s golden era of infrastructure construction behind us…”

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Repairing infrastructure and constructing new infrastructure is difficult these days (via the example of the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels on I-70 in Colorado):

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The attention Fox is about to get is a perfect illustration of what researchers refer to as the invisibility of infrastructure. It’s only when infrastructure breaks, whether it’s a closed tunnel, a broken cell phone tower, or a delayed train, that the public seems to notice it exists. “Unfortunately, we usually take for granted when things work, and we don’t value maintenance as much as we probably should,” says Cristina Torres-Machi, an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. “But we also do that in our daily life. We only remember how good the dishwasher is when it’s not working.”

With America’s golden era of infrastructure construction behind us—a period which arguably began with New Deal public works projects in the 1930s and ended with the completion of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System in 1992 just down the road in Glenwood Canyon—there’s been a shift in both academic thought and in practice at various levels of government to elevate infrastructure maintenance in the national consciousness, lest it arrive unbidden. In the Centennial State, there’s no better embodiment of this shift than the EJMT. It cost $262 million to build both bores between 1968 and 1979, or the equivalent of about $1.2 billion today. But calculating the cost of adding a third tunnel bore—something CDOT has identified as essential for alleviating congestion on the I-70 mountain corridor—isn’t as simple as adjusting for inflation. Modern environmental protections, safety standards, and construction techniques all drive up the costs of these massive projects, a serious problem considering the agency’s 2024–’25 budget is only $1.7 billion. When I ask how much a third bore would cost, Fox jokingly throws out a figure: $300 billion. Bob Fifer, CDOT’s deputy director of operations, echoes the sentiment…

The inability to green-light ambitious infrastructure projects is happening all over the country. Most of President Joe Biden’s lauded $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, for example, will go toward repairing or upgrading existing infrastructure instead of funding new projects on the scale of the EJMT. Even that $1.2 trillion is half of what the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the United States would need to invest over the next decade to simply maintain its ports, electrical grids, bridges, and transportation networks in a “state of good repair.” “There is something kind of nostalgic [about the EJMT]—that they could gather the will and the funding and the common commitment to build these kinds of incredible engineering marvels,” says Steven Jackson, a Cornell University professor whose areas of study include the maintenance of infrastructure systems. “There’s some question if we even remember how to do that or know how to do it together anymore.”

Jackson agrees with Fox and Fifer that escalating expenses are a major reason grand public works like the EJMT aren’t often attempted anymore, but he also believes there could be a deeper, societal issue at play. “[Back then], there was a notion of government being a conduit for collective purpose that could gather and channel resources for projects like the tunnels, but it’s harder to see in our current moment,” he says. “The tunnels almost feel like relics of a bygone bipartisan world.”

So costs plus a lack of collective will means American infrastructure is in danger long-term? The solutions to these two issues would be to pay up and gather support among leaders and the public. Will more things need to break before action is taken?

But I wonder if there might be other options. Imagine new infrastructure that means older systems do not need to be maintained. New cost-saving measures. New needs for daily life.

Some of this is hard to imagine. The tunnels discussed above would no longer be needed because of what, flying cars or a hyperloop? Lead drinking pipes won’t need to be replaced because we will get water how, from personal devices that pull water out of the air?

At some point, the infrastructure issues will force a reckoning. Regular maintenance will help. But at some point, even well-maintained infrastructure might not be worth keeping given what else might be possible.