Published by Whatfinger News | September 13, 2023
The United States just faced the highest spike in homelessness rates on record, and that’s directly tied to the decline of the American middle class.
New numbers suggest that middle-income families are the hardest hit by the ongoing housing crisis. Right now, the number of evictions and foreclosures is hitting sky-highs as affordability issues continue to worsen, and about 3 in 4 middle-class households can no longer afford current housing prices. NAR released a new report that shows that more than 75% of homes on the market are now too expensive for middle-income families. Researchers highlighted that workers earning up to $75,000 per year could afford just 23% of all listed properties in the U.S.
A study by Redfin found that 8.6% of listed houses in the U.S. were worth seven figures in August. These numbers underscore how in many areas of the country, million-dollar homes are not necessarily luxurious. They’re actually “normal” properties, according to LendingTree’s senior economist Jacob Channel. “There are a lot of areas, at this point where million-dollar homes have not only become more common, they’ve also — for lack of a better term — become more middle class,” he said. With prices rising far faster than people’s incomes, more and more families are in danger of losing their homes amid an explosion in the number of foreclosure filings. In the first half of the year alone, foreclosure starts shot up 15%, according to real estate data provider ATTOM’s Midyear 2023 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. Eviction rates are also climbing across the nation in the third quarter.
Sadly, the number of homeless Americans has just reached a new record. According to data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. homeless population has grown by 11% in the first eight months of the year, the largest increase in at least 15 years.
While the number of unhoused people continues to rise, the number of middle-class families is steadily shrinking. In fact, U.S. Census Bureau data shows that just 50% of American adults lived in middle-income households last year. That’s about 15% lower than the number of middle-class families in the 1970s.
