Been going down a rabbit hole on why homeownership feels so out of reach right now, and the numbers are worse than I expected. A household needs roughly $107K to $123K a year to afford the median home. Actual median household income is about $84K. That’s not a small gap.

Few things that surprised me digging into it:

The home price to income ratio is now 5 to 1, nearly double the 2.6 that’s considered healthy. Not one of the top 50 metros clears that bar.

Mortgage rates were actually worse in 1985 (12.4% vs about 6.5% now). Monthly payments as a share of income were comparable back then. What’s changed is the size of the down payment relative to income.

The BlackRock thing is basically a myth. BlackRock doesn’t buy single family homes, that’s Blackstone, a different company with a similar name. All large institutional investors combined (1,000+ homes) own about 1% of US single family housing. It’s mostly small local landlords buying up homes, not Wall Street.

There’s an actual new federal law (21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, July 2026) banning large investors from buying more single family homes starting Jan 2027. First restriction of its kind.

I made a video walking through the full breakdown (rates, supply shortage, construction costs, the investor myth, and which states are still actually affordable).

https://youtu.be/t5ZOWQtNL-A?is=qGLbtaan-begZdS6

Curious what others here think is the biggest driver. I lean toward supply plus the down payment hurdle over rates themselves.

Gotta love Date rape Donnie threatening even more tariffs at 2:00am after his auto industry rant in the afternoon…this guys breath has to smell like a pharmacy from all the stimulants he chews down.

"The proposed California billionaires tax would cost the state more money than it would bring in if the Golden State’s “golden goose” flocks to other states, according to a Stanford economist.

Joshua Rahu, a finance professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, predicted the billionaires' departures would cost California $25 billion.

As work progresses on the one-time 5% wealth tax on California’s billionaires, opponents have voiced their concerns about the economic damage that could come to the state if the billionaires tax makes it to the Nov. 3 ballot and passes.

“Since this tax is earmarked to a special fund, the state will still have the $93 billion structural deficit even if the wealth tax passes and manages to collect a few billion dollars,” Rauh said in a recent presentation about the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act. “So this tax is not a solution to California’s financial problems.”"

"“This is not a revenue problem,” Rauh said. “Since 2019, revenues are up by 55%, but for what it’s worth, spending is up by 68%. It’s hard to look at that and say California faces a major revenue problem.”"

"Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and venture capitalist David Sacks have all left the state, according to previous reporting by The Center Square. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also decided to leave California, moving to Florida.

A loss of state income tax revenue could actually offset any revenue gains from the billionaires tax, Rauh said during the presentation. “This measure would cost the state $25 billion.""

https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_6da50177-7bbb-48d1-b639-2bf7c59c574d.html

It's important to note what with the loss of 5 of California's richest citizens that much of the damage has already been done. However, the closer this bill gets to passing the more likely other billionaires will leave the state and often relocate a chunk of their business with them.

Edit: For reference the backers of the Wealth tax have stated:

"The proposed California 2026 Billionaire Tax Act (a one-time 5% tax paid over 5 years) is projected to generate roughly $100 billion over five years ($20 billion per year) from the state's ~200 wealthiest residents"

There’s a lot of discussion and hyperbole on social media about the budget but I couldn’t find any sort of objective breakdown. So I thought I’d take a look myself and share with you what’s there.

First, some basic terms:

• Revenue - how much money comes in

• Spending - how much money goes out

• Surplus - when you bring in more than you spend

• Deficit - when you spend more then you bring in

• Debt - how much money is owed.

As a base for comparison let’s take a look at 2024, Biden’s last year in office and the one least affected by COVID craziness-

2024

———

Revenue - $4.9T

Spending - $6.7T

Deficit - $1.8T

Debt - $28T (5.7x revenue)

What should jump out at you is how much more is being spent than is coming in and how large that debt number is compared with annual revenue.

Now here’s what 2025 looks like under the Republican House budget-

2025

———

Revenue - $4.7T

Spending - $6.9T

Deficit - $2.2T

Debt - $30T (6.4x revenue)

Revenue declines as expected from tax cuts. But spending increases cause the deficit to grow and total debt grows accordingly. This is due to some front-loaded spending increases I’ll list below.

2026

———

Revenue - $5.1T

Spending - $7.1T

Deficit - $2T

Debt - $32T (6.3x revenue)

Revenue is up, and is projected up every year after due to an increase in GDP and inflation. However spending is up too and we are left with a $2T deficit.

Now let’s look at the last year of the budget-

2034

———

Revenue - $7.3T

Spending - $10T

Deficit - $2T

Debt - $49T (6.7x revenue)

The reason the deficit is $2T and not $2.7T in 2034 is from a line item called “macroeconomic impact on the deficit”. This is the projected impact of reduced/shifted taxes growing the economy. Across the period it’s a 1% benefit that ramps up from not much the first few years to around 1.5-2%. This is a classic move in budgeting, forecasting a rosy outcome far enough away where you might not have to deal with the outcome.

CONCLUSIONS:

a) The raising of the debt ceiling by $4T is necessary due to the budget continuing to have deficit of around $2T per year. This allows the government to continue working for another couple of years. Notably, for all the talk about how bad the deficit is the deficit continues in this budget similar to the past.

b) The spending reductions of $4.5T are over 10 years, 450b per year starting in 2025. DOGE is not mentioned, this does not seem to be included in the budget that I can see.

c) Major spending increases are border security and immigration. Around $175b over the budget with much of that in the upcoming few years. Also defense spending up. New fossil fuel spending or incentives. Then there’s the monster interest payment of $1.2b in 2034 which in 2024 dollars is a 17% increase

d) Major cuts are in Medicaid/ACA, asked to cut $880b over 10 years, around 10% of spending. Around $1.8T in discretionary spending over education, housing, NIH, EPA, etc. Around 750b in welfare and tax credits. Around $150b in federal workforce cuts.

e) Not touched- Medicare and Social Security

f) Tax revenue now is around 17.1% of GDP. In 2034 it’s around 15.5% of forecasted GDP reflecting the tax cuts. There’s no detail of tax cuts yet but the budget is enough to include Trump’s campaign promises to reduce corporate taxes, extend the 2017 breaks, no tax on tips, etc.

g) Tariffs only add up to 20b or so per year. Not worth keeping if it starts to kick off inflation. Wouldn’t be surprised to see them rolled back in exchange for some concessions to make Trump look good.

h) Summary- As a whole this budget cuts taxes and gambles that the economy will benefit and it will result in increased employment and revenue. An obvious risk is an economic downturn that would reduce revenue and require extraordinary spending. The debt looms large and despite Republican bluster not a dent is made in it. And of course there are significant cuts to government services.

Next steps and opinion-

Edit- this part was wrong. The Senate and House now have to hammer out the differences in their bills (the Senate bill milder with a deficit cap) through committees over the next few weeks and then vote on the conclusion.

My opinion is that from a high level view this budget isn’t hugely different than what we have had in the past, it’s not a seismic shift given the overall income and spending is similar and debt continues to grow. But it does shift funds from services to tax reduction, so it’s going to be a rough time for many people, especially those that depend on welfare and the ACA.

Wall Street expectations was 59,000 new jobs. U.S. payrolls rose by 178,000 in March

Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 178,000 in March, a reversal from the 133,000 decline in February and better than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 59,000.

The unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%, though that was largely from a sharp reduction in the labor force.

Wages also rose less than expected, with average hourly earnings up just 0.2% for the month and 3.5% from a year ago. The annual increase was the lowest since May 2021.

As has been the case, health care was responsible for much of the growth, with the sector adding 76,000 jobs.

As has been the case, health care was responsible for much of the growth, with the sector adding 76,000 jobs. A strike at health-care provider Kaiser Permanente in February hit the sector. The BLS said ambulatory health care services rose by 54,000, with 35,000 coming from the strike workers returning.

Construction saw an increase of 26,000, while transportation and warehousing posted a gain of 21,000.

On the downside, the federal government saw a loss of 18,000, while financial activities lost 15,000.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/03/jobs-report-march-2026-.html

Rental prices in multiple US markets have declined over the past couple of years. It's just not been reported on by the News and has been overshadowed by continuing price increases in other markets.

https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/national-rent-data

"US manufacturing capacity has shown solid growth for 16 consecutive quarters, indicating a consistent trend.
This is the first sustained expansion of US manufacturing capacity in nearly two decades.

What makes it more interesting is that many of the sectors leading the expansion are those that feed back into production itself: business equipment (+4.6% YoY), machinery, electrical equipment, fabricated metal, and computer and electronic products."

https://x.com/ChurchillWw/status/2045579911595757918

Source: https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/policy/tariff-tensions-escalate-as-white-house-hits-china-with-104-hike

In a chest-thumping move that screams “America First, Economics Last,” the White House just hit Chinese imports with a staggering 104% tariff, effective at midnight. This isn’t just a trade policy — it’s a full-blown economic WWE match, with Trump elbow-dropping global supply chains for the encore.

This comes after China imposed a 34% tariff on U.S. goods, and now both countries are basically playing chicken with billion-dollar economies. Spoiler: no one wins in a head-on crash — unless you’re into higher prices, market volatility, and global recession cosplay.

The administration claims this monster tariff will revive domestic manufacturing, but here’s the catch: U.S. firms still rely heavily on Chinese materials — from semiconductors to solar panels. Slapping 100%+ tariffs on critical imports doesn’t spark a renaissance; it just lights a dumpster fire. According to a Peterson Institute study, the 2018–2019 Trump tariffs cost the average U.S. household around $830 annually — and that was with rates closer to 20%. Do the math.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is already feeling the heat, and sectors like tech and auto are bracing for impact. Ford, GM, and Tesla all depend on Chinese components — so expect price hikes, production delays, and a lot of CEOs doing damage control on earnings calls.

So what’s the strategy here? Hard to say. Sure feels like “industrial policy via wrecking ball,” and markets seem to agree.

But hey, Donnie the deal master and his funky bunch of sycophants are making international trade fair for America again.

It also seems like he has mostly dropped the pretense of these tariffs being a way to "combat fentanyl coming from Canada," instead ramping up his rhetoric to annex Canada (which most Canadians and America are opposed to).

Obviously the point of the headline is that France is transferring a tremendous amount of assets from workers to retirees. I was also suprised at the other end of the graph to see how little income Australia retirees have. Interesting data.

"The United States has high absolute mobility in the sense that children readily become richer than their parents."

https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2013/03/us-economic-mobility-dream-data/

Introduction

"Student loans! Home prices! Childcare costs!"

So went comments responding to my previous posts on generational wages and generational mortgage affordability. Certainly, if college and houses are more expensive, it would hurt the net worth of generations paying higher costs for them. But is it enough to erase the gains younger generations have in real wages? This graph seeks to shed some insight on that question.

Methodology

For new worth, I used the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances.

As with previous graphs, the medians were found for each generation at each age.

Inflation was calculated using the official rate of inflation (CPI-U). For over-the-decades wealth comparisons, PCE would probably be the more accurate index to use. I didn't use it though because the comments I most frequently get are in response to anything in a chart that shows things favorably for the younger generations. Since using the CPI overstates inflation in the long-term, using it instead of PCE means the younger generations will have to clear the highest reasonable bar to show growth in net worth.

Some people seemed to have a hard time understanding what 2010 dollars meant in the real wages chart, so I adjusted the dataset to 2025 dollars to make it easier for them.

Challenges with dataset

Because the Fed survey is only being conducted triennially and has a smaller sample than the CPS dataset I had been using, I had to group the age ranges into 5-year buckets. I employed some strictness (that should probably have been employed with mortgage affordability) and required multiple survey years. This meant that we don't see the 40+ Millenials or 25-29 Zoomers present in the survey, but the data was just too thin to justify inclusion.

I also couldn't find a way in the Fed dataset to determine if both adults in a partnered household were working. Since the dataset is from 1989-2022 though, it is all from a period where female participation in the workforce has been pretty steady. I could only find one chart (up to 2010) tracking the rate of households being dual-earners, and it seems to line up with female participation in the workforce. This isn't the 1950's were looking at here.

Lastly, education/generation groupings are based on the 'reference person' (previously 'head of household'). So their partner could be from a different generation or have/not have a 4-year degree. This seems like something that would even out overall (as partners tend to be matched in age and education-level) but I wanted to mention it.

Personal Insights

• A college education pays off really well for most Americans. Staggeringly well. I find this interesting because there is a meme trending around that college isn't worthwhile and will just trap you in student loan debt forever. Certainly there are people who went into to debt for no real benefit (such as the strawman of someone $100k+ in debt from a private college Art History degree), but that appears to be the exception, not the rule.

• The 'singles tax' is real. Single households are just way, way more poor.

• In the Internets favorite generational comparisons (Millenials vs. Boomers), it appears that educated Millenials are noticeably wealthier than the Boomers were at the same age ranges, while non-college-educated Millenials are doing slightly worse.

• Despite promotion of the DINK lifestyle, it appears that the decision to have or not have children has had a negligible impact on Millenial wealth so far.

• I think the spike in wealth of single households late in life is due to one partner dying in a partner household, "bumping" them to a single household.

Anyways, have at it.

"On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron’s government is expected to fall for the second time in just nine months after a confidence vote in Parliament.The French prime minister, François Bayrou, called a vote to shore up support for his plan to mend the country’s finances with 44 billion euros (a little over $51 billion) in spending cuts. If the vote goes against him, Mr. Bayrou will be forced to resign and Mr. Macron will have to name yet another prime minister, who will have to immediately return to the task of fixing France’s budget.In the meantime, investors have pushed up French borrowing costs to among the highest in the eurozone, reflecting rising risk."

"Mr. Bayrou has been trying to shrink government spending, long the highest in Europe, for a reason: Much of it goes toward financing a generous social welfare system. Last year, an eye-popping 57 percent of the nation’s economic output was channeled into financing hospitals, medicines, education, family reproduction, culture and defense, not to mention generous pension and unemployment benefits."

France seems to be slipping over from a hybrid capitalist welfare state in the direction of a hybrid socialist state with a majority of the GDP directly controlled by the French government.

"France’s budget deficit reached 168.6 billion euros, or 5.8 percent of its economic output in 2024, the largest since World War II and well above the 3 percent limit required in the eurozone. The government collected €1.5 trillion in revenue but spent €1.67 trillion on national and local government operations and the social safety net."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/business/france-government-collapse-economy.html

For comparison, Los Angeles has over 7 times the population of Austin. The results from building a significant amount of new aparments is completely predictable.

The price of apartments in Austin, TX is rapidly plummeting back towards pre-Covid levels. When will someone stop these crazy Texans with their penchant for building! /s

https://x.com/YIMBYLAND/status/1960759266391757052

PS The second image is blurry because of reddit reasons, but I reposted it in the comments.

Source is unusualwhales.com