As I read this I have to keep telling myself "it's about how these voters FEEL", not necessarily their reality. I graduated with a Masters in Engineering in 1991 from a top school - "professional work", but there were certainly days where I was asked to do my share of "bullshit work". My starting salary was $33,500. With some very quick research, rent for a 2 bedroom apartment is NYC in 1991 was about $1,100. That would have been about 39% of my income - not a big difference from today. I didn't live in NY, I lived in Washington DC, but I chose to live out in Fairfax County and had a roommate to save money. Yes, my commute into DC was 45 minutes to an hour. Maybe these people should move to (gasp!) Elmont or Floral Park and take the LIRR to work. I will admit that I was fortunate to not have student loans, but that is a testament to how ridiculously expensive college tuition is today - which I would argue is not driven by the "greedy billionaires". I also question whether any of these people did the research I did into what the average starting salary would be for "nonprofit managers, freelance writers, overburdened teachers" before they decided to pay top dollar for the degrees in these jobs and insist on living in NYC. I would love to know who they think "promised" them a job in NYC as a nonprofit manager living in an apartment in some of the most desirable zip codes in the country with money to spare to save and eventually buy a home in those neighborhoods.
Re:Housing affordability - it’s interesting that you didn’t really propose any solutions, correct? Just advice to move out? I get that in near term, but wouldn’t they also vote for someone who is promising to fix their problem?
Re: Career earnings and student debt - again no solutions. Just that those chose the wrong degree. I’m not trying to be snarky, but people will gravitate to those that speak to solving their problems.
The whole point of this article was really to reflect on what these people desire instead of just dismissing them again. I think they understand they aren’t living their best lives.
I don't think you are being snarky and you are right to ask for solutions.
On housing, there really are only three solutions. One doesn't require anyone to "move out" and that is build a whole bunch of new housing - so much that prices come down. Two of those three, however, do require someone to "move out". 2) Let the market do its thing and those that can't afford the prices move somewhere cheaper. And like I said above, I'm not saying Antarctica - I'm saying Nassau or Newark. Commute like millions of other people across the country, including people that live in those places now. 3) Set price controls - and guess what - someone still doesn't get to live where they desire to live. The only difference is that the person that can't live there now has more money - but they still become a disillusioned voter if we "reflect" on whether they are getting what they "desire".
On choosing the wrong degree, the solution is to admit that was your mistake and either qualify yourself for a better paying job through more education and training or move somewhere where you can still do what you want to do career-wise and afford to live comfortably. Mamdani is not going to relieve people's student debt and he is not going to start paying social workers $200,000 a year - even if people think he "speaks to solving their problems".
I am reflecting on what people desire. But reflecting on it, analyzing it, and concluding that MAYBE they are being unrealistic is not dismissing them.
Surely, living in the DC area you ought to know that a house in Upper Caucasia NW quadrant is at least twice as expensive as a similar one in vibrant SE quadrant. Whites are a shrinking percentage of the population and therefore are being corralled into smaller areas. Ergo, desirable real estate becomes more expernsive.
Whites are not shrinking as a % of the population in DC or most other major cities. In fact they’ve been increasing and gentrifying many neighborhoods, which is making them more expensive.
From 1970 to 2013 in Prince Georges County, MD, just outside DC, whites went from 567,600 to 135,000, or a decline of 76%, mostly working class. They were replaced by middle class, affirmative action government job blacks moving from DC. The percent of blacks went from 16% to 63% while the percent of whites declined 86% to 15%. You don't care about that type of gentrification, right?
You are really are clueless, aren’t you? The whole reason PG County became more black is because black people left DC and moved there. DC became less black, more white. Nothing you said disproves my comment. The same thing is happening in Atlanta, Denver, and many other cities.
Government crowded out the student loan market loaning any amount of money to anyone for any degree, bankruptcy laws changed so you can’t discharge student loans, and universities took advantage by raising tuitions, salaries and building brochure-ready gyms and “amenities “.
Total disaster started by government good intentions—paving the way to hell…
When something fuck up in some major way over the long term you can bet it was something collectively « managed », so usually the government but it can be other groups too. The reality is that no single individual would allow for things to get that bad.
Incorrect. If you graduated in 1991, you really have no clue what they're going through. It may not have occurred to you, but that's 35 years and a Soviet Union ago.
It would be hard to imagine a less sympathetic demography. Has anyone ever combined such affluence (by historical or global standards) with so much self-pity? They imagine some better -- perhaps perfect -- life and are miserable and indignant over the ways they can find reality falling short from that imagination. They are their own curse. Their sentence is to life with themselves, but now with more taxes and less policing. Their path to prosperity is the same as that for everyone: offer goods and services that people want. It's work! But it works. Their path to happiness is the same as that for everyone: stop ruminating about yourself and serve some higher purpose. Their inability or unwillingness to do either is on them as are the consequences.
Chris, this is great advice if you're talking one on one to a young adult. If, however, this is how you think conservatives, or even mainstream liberals, should talk to this demographic, don't be surprised if the group response is downright hostile.
Quite possibly. Sometimes people are really set in their ways. I'll have someone come to me essentially saying "I am falling behind financially and am miserable!" to which I assume they want to change those attributes and make different/better decisions. Given that it is a big target to be better than they're doing, I offer some better ideas. Then they defend and explain what they're doing, why, and why they need to keep doing the same thing even after they said it was terrible. It is like someone who is lost but insists on going in the same direction without getting help. Oh well...
Actually, maybe not. When it's 0.05% of the cost in question, potential social connections and the doors they open may be more valuable than the money, including for the goal measured against.
What higher purpose? When family ends, there are no higher purposes. All that exists beyond family is a worthless death that no one will remember. A dead end has no more purpose than a cow or a rat.
This is 100% spot on. I am the person who this article talks about. Undergrad 3.5 GPA. 3.65 MBA GPA. Corporate job since I was 22. Was not able to afford a home with my partner in Greater Boston until I was 37. Unsure if we will be able to have children due to cost and age. I was promised in 2005 if I followed the script I would have a “good job” and a stable life. Until college educated people are able to afford to buy a home and have kids by age 30, expect politics to become more radicalized.
If the top 1% percent don’t give away some of their wealth like they did during FDR’s presidency, then you’re going to see more and more Mamdani’s emerge.
So, you want the 1% to give money to you, not to the truly needy. Who made such a promise to you in 2005? You don’t say what your undergrad major was in. Some major are productive, some are actual harms to society.
Ive been waiting for the first libertarian “it’s my own fault” reply. To answer your question, I was a business management major at a business school then I got my MBA as I mentioned. I wasn’t wise enough at age 18 to realize I needed to “learn to code”, get an engineering degree, or whatever major you think is worthy enough. Your libertarian “it’s my fault” response proves my point.
And to answer your snarky “who told you life would be good in 2005”, it was the general zeitgeist of the time that college was the ticket to a good job and a middle class life and trade school was for losers. This was enforced by family, high school, and culture. Not sure how old you are but any millennial who grew up then would agree with me.
If we create a society where you need to get into the top 10% of income earners to be able to afford a house and kids by 30 then politics is going to destabilize like you are seeing. Telling people they aren’t valuable, lazy, or stupid like you just tried to do to me isn’t a good way to earn their votes.
To answer your pro 1% libertarian argument, you tax the 1% at higher levels to fund Universal Child Care and Medicare for All. You outlaw private equity from buying single family homes. You steamroll NIMBYs concerned about more density and lower property values and you build more homes.
I know one thing for sure. If you try to tell people like me I made poor choices and I’m too stupid and not valuable enough you’re going to see more and more Mamdani politicians emerge.
> You outlaw private equity from buying single family homes.
I can see how that sounds appealing, but the way it would actually shake out is extra bureaucratic friction for all potential home-buyers, not increased supply. What's needed is a higher tax rate on vacant lots. https://www.gameofrent.com/ That would make it *unprofitable* for private equity to hoard potential living space - existing rules about maximizing shareholder value can handle the rest.
I am not a libertarian, more of a Roosevelt New Dealer. Mamdani’s policies will lead to national poverty. We need to enforce antitrust laws, reverse the Clinton era financial “reforms” and go back to the New Deal financial regulations, plus end the asset price accumulation caused by loose money since about 1995. I agree that the US middle class has been screwed, but the last thing we need is programs that create more of an entitlement mentality, either among the top 1% or anyone else.
Bernie’s social democracy is the 21st century version of a FDR’s New Deal. No one is talking about seizing the means of production. We just want to have a higher floor like they do in European countries. The Nordic countries are the happiest countries in the world for a reason.
If we keep going down our current path the country is either going to end up with fascism or economic collapse/ disintegration.
I bought my first house in greater Boston when I was 37 too, I don’t know but not being able to buy a home sooner never felt off to me. Actually I feel incredibly fortunate to have had an inflation adjusted annual ROI of over 10% on that investment, it’s pure dumb luck. What age “should” people be able buy their first home in one of the wealthiest metro areas in the country?
Nice to hear from someone who is local. The example I always use was my mom was a secretary at a hospital in Boston and was able to support three people on her salary in a nice apartment in a Boston suburb (dad had drug abuse issues) which would be impossible today. We would either be in the street or living with grandparents.
A generation ago college educated people were able to graduate at 22, work a few years and be able to afford a down payment on a home by 27-28 or so. Now if you don’t climb the corporate ladder super quickly you can’t afford a down payment until your mid 30s if at all. This also requires you to live with parents for 5-10 years out of college. If you move in with roommates after college and aren’t making six figures you will never own a home.
no doubt that paradigm has changed, hospital admins make around $50k in Boston now which surely isn’t enough to do what your mom did. Obviously lack of housing is an issue, but also let’s recognize that the value add and skills required to be an admin has changed. I’m a middle manager at a Fortune 500 company, and I just don’t need anyone to make copies or maintain my calendar like was required in the past. I’m betting your mom would run circles around the people in those jobs today.
Things are difficult right now, we all agree. But why would you elect someone who is going to make things worse? Mandami is going to chase out apartment builders with his talk of rent freezes. He isn’t going to raise anyone’s salary. Crime will get worse with fewer police. I don’t get it.
These people will never be republicans, if they’re really so downwardly mobile they’ll just lean into their progressive identify. Think “clinging to their guns and bibles” or whatever Obama said, just a different flavor.
The beatings will continue until the US removes 99% of H1B, OPT and other VISAs focused on bringing in cheap labor to compete with US citizens. All other "solutions" are handwaving.
Peter Turchin identified this as Elite Overproduction - that there are never enough elite roles for those trying to climb the ladder - and when there are far more who want the roles than roles that exist, chaos follows. Figure out a way to address elite overproduction and you reduce the chance of chaos.
Nothing new. This is the class the bolsheviks called the petit intelligentsia. You say they are “culturally elite.” It would be more accurate to say that they perceive themselves as culturally elite. They believe their masters degree from Columbia gives them the right to look down on everyone else, and they certainly believe they should be better paid than a plumber, even though their benefits to society are much less than the plumber.
Great analysis. As someone who was born in 1984, went to and graduated college I can attest to the struggles my generation has experienced. I'm in a group chat with several of my college buddies and much of the conversation revolves around how hard it is to maintain even a somewhat comfortable middle class lifestyle that is even a fraction of what our parents enjoyed. My feeling is the boomer generation, in politics, in business and nearly everywhere else has simply held on too long and now the next generation, multiple decades into adulthood, has grown resentful and that resentment has yielding candidates like Mamdani.
Born in 1988. As I already commented above I couldn’t agree more. My family were blue collar workers and never made a ton of money. They live in old average houses and due to asset inflation are now millionaires while millennials can’t afford to buy homes and start families until their mid-late 30s. Waiting for the boomers to die so we can get their inheritance isn’t an economic plan. I’m not surprised at all politics is destabilizing.
Respectfully, is commuting not an option? I live in Japan and commutes of 40+ mins door to door are very normal. I don’t know if that is feasible as don’t know NY well though. Is that an option there?
It's very expensive to live without roommates in anything within a 40 minute door to door commuting distance of Manhattan's office districts (including Jersey) unless you are in price-controlled housing (which New York has a lot of! This is the only reason it's possible for its median household income to be similar to Portland, Oregon). For market rate properties $2000 - $2500 is possible but you have to really hunt and be prepared to fight to sign a lease on the spot, and that's for a walk up with no washer/dryer or dishwasher.
They want to live in stylish neighborhoods in New York. Some of this is a genuine economic squeeze, but some of it is lifestyle choice. Phoenix and Houston are beneath them.
Another factor, in addition to the comments below, is the glamor of "prewar" styles of architecture. We will never get back the "real" materials that made those turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses so great, but one way to lure young professionals out to the suburbs is to move away from that "subdivision" style of postwar housing with the low ceilings and hollow-core doors. This may be a great style for some, but many younger renters/buyers would regard living in such digs as a lowered quality of life. New builds need vaulted ceilings and crown moulding if they can possibly swing it - and does anybody plaster walls anymore?
Unaffordable housing begin with the great society in 1960s. Unaffordable healthcare began with government subsidies and exacerbated by the ACA of OBama. Educational failure from indoctrination and student debt explosion began when OBama federalized student loans and used high interest rates to pay for the ACA. Life . The Federal Reserve is not independent it manipulates our currency and democrats flood the economy with free money and then inflation eats up any wage gains. The government is the problem and maybe the country is too far gone to reverse course.
You'll never convince the right wing economy policy team anything is wrong. They see the high asset prices of stocks and real estate as a feature not a big. They still call for more tax cuts to help capital owners save even more money...parking it in US assets...pushing prices even higher..
One possible area for common cause: we've tried to lower prices by subsidizing demand and constraining supply and have found that tactic at odds with day one of Econ 101 stuff re: how prices work. Instead we could try the opposite: deregulate supply. Allow builders to build. Get rid of delays and red tape. The solution to high prices is high prices if markets are freed to do their thing. If the government stops supporting demand and instead lets supply grow, prices might fall. It works in theory and in practice.
One easy place to start would be with federal legislation limiting building codes to meet minimum safety standards. Currently they require all kinds of things that are niceties but not essential. Most builders will tell you the Residential Energy Code is one of the factors contributing unnecessarily to housing costs. In addition to energy there are several other codes (structural, electrical, plumbing, etc.) and these codes are proprietary intellectual property, meaning to even know what is required to comply with the law you have to pay over $100 each just for the pdf versions.
The second piece of low hanging fruit to fix is real estate commissions. If you have 20% equity and the realtors take 5-6% of the full sale price every time the house turns over, that represents a huge transfer of wealth. As in 1/4 of your equity.
My eyes were opened decades ago when I first toured an old European city .. not one of the apartment complexes would meet an American ADA standard to allow it to be rented out. The very aspect that made it charming .. narrow, twisting gothic stone stairways and no place to retrofit an elevator even if one were demanded. (An aside, I was stationed at the Pentagon during it's update to meet ADA standards (9/11 fortuitously struck an empty section being renovated) - so one could directly compare the original unique and cool architecture - one felt like they were working in a James Bond movie - with secret ratholes, hide-out and impossible secretive mazes with the new huge waste of space open area sections that resemble any modern grand escalator-ridden and broad avenued shopping mall. There never has been a government Department of Aesthetics to even provide input to whatever functional priority of the moment. (Which in the case of the Pentagon, seems to be to ensure it is able to handle the day when every worker there is in a wheelchair.)
Building codes in particular are promulgated by an NGO called the International Code Council and if you click through you can see the monthly and annual document license fees which exceed $2,000 for the full set per year: https://codes.iccsafe.org/codes/i-codes/2024-icodes
Finally I highly recommend a Substack call Construction Physics, although I’m not sure if they’ve specifically covered building code cost impacts: https://www.construction-physics.com
Personally I’d like to see minimum building standards developed as a free open source document with certification to specific levels, for example Grade 1 through 5 showing basic and structurally sound to more upscale deluxe building standards. This could be developed with certification and inspection provided by private engineering companies. That would put the consumer in a position to buy what they want and can afford without impairing safety. It would also take governments out of the loop, as construction delays are a common cost driver due to slow permitting by municipalities.
Can't talk about subsidizing demand and constraining supply of housing when the Democrats want an unlimited stream of cheap foreign labor to come into the country unabated and unvetted.
Reply to Mr. Pete: Actually, the high asset prices were caused by the Clinton administration’s “reform” of the financial system and the Obama administration’s quantitative easing. I agree that both of these administrations were bought and paid for by the oligopolistic on Wall Street, but they were hardly right wing.
Where are the parents of these 20-, 30-, and 40-somethings?
As a group those parents inherited beaucoup bucks from their parents. The biggest inter generational wealth transfer in human history. Those parents went to college and grad school when it was dirt cheap. They bought their houses when houses were dirt cheap. (Most college educated kids today had parents and grandparents with lots of advantages; social mobility is long gone in the US.)
Why didn’t those parents pay college tuition for their kids from their inheritances and incomes? Why don’t they sell their houses and downsize and recycle the gains into gift down payments for their kids? Or move out and give the house to the kids?
Why should those of us of a certain age who lived beneath our incomes and used our inheritances to pay for our kids’ education and help them with down-payments to buy houses cover the costs of others who were selfish and spending on themselves like drunken sailors?
For that matter, why should we cover all the college debt that arose from tuition having to pay for bullshit administrative jobs in colleges and universities over the last 35 years? Maybe the endowments should pay off unsustainable student debt or the institutions should be sued for fraud and have to sell their real estate (just like the RC Church atoning for sexual abuse). You could build a lot of high rise housing on the campuses in NYC.
But those are Zohran’s friends (and specifically his dad and his dad’s friends). And come to that, the NYT informs me that the Mamdanis have a big, fancy family compound in Uganda. God only knows how many Black Ugandan families were dispossessed to produce Mamdaniworld. Maybe that could be sold off too and Zohran can do his beach holidays at Rockaway.
I was hoping you'd discuss the neighborhoods, rather than just punditing vaguely. Where does the working class in NY live? What was the pattern in Manhattan? Who did the rich people vote for? Who did the ethnic eighborhoods here and there vote for?
I’m done rescuing fools. Let they/them live with the consequences of their folly. They are determined to collapse the republic because they expect to rule from the ashes. Most will hang from lampposts when the Jacobins take over. The madness is evident. There aren’t enough good men left to come to the rescue.
Thank you. Brilliant analysis. The suffering middle class has been an overlooked issue for years. Too successful to get the benefits of the poor. Too poor to enjoy the benefits their seemingly decent salaries just can't provide.
The author gives too much credit to that voter base. In reality they just vote by emotion, and that emotion is determined by whichever candidate racks up the most number of "oppressed" points in their warped woke chart.
As I read this I have to keep telling myself "it's about how these voters FEEL", not necessarily their reality. I graduated with a Masters in Engineering in 1991 from a top school - "professional work", but there were certainly days where I was asked to do my share of "bullshit work". My starting salary was $33,500. With some very quick research, rent for a 2 bedroom apartment is NYC in 1991 was about $1,100. That would have been about 39% of my income - not a big difference from today. I didn't live in NY, I lived in Washington DC, but I chose to live out in Fairfax County and had a roommate to save money. Yes, my commute into DC was 45 minutes to an hour. Maybe these people should move to (gasp!) Elmont or Floral Park and take the LIRR to work. I will admit that I was fortunate to not have student loans, but that is a testament to how ridiculously expensive college tuition is today - which I would argue is not driven by the "greedy billionaires". I also question whether any of these people did the research I did into what the average starting salary would be for "nonprofit managers, freelance writers, overburdened teachers" before they decided to pay top dollar for the degrees in these jobs and insist on living in NYC. I would love to know who they think "promised" them a job in NYC as a nonprofit manager living in an apartment in some of the most desirable zip codes in the country with money to spare to save and eventually buy a home in those neighborhoods.
Re:Housing affordability - it’s interesting that you didn’t really propose any solutions, correct? Just advice to move out? I get that in near term, but wouldn’t they also vote for someone who is promising to fix their problem?
Re: Career earnings and student debt - again no solutions. Just that those chose the wrong degree. I’m not trying to be snarky, but people will gravitate to those that speak to solving their problems.
The whole point of this article was really to reflect on what these people desire instead of just dismissing them again. I think they understand they aren’t living their best lives.
I don't think you are being snarky and you are right to ask for solutions.
On housing, there really are only three solutions. One doesn't require anyone to "move out" and that is build a whole bunch of new housing - so much that prices come down. Two of those three, however, do require someone to "move out". 2) Let the market do its thing and those that can't afford the prices move somewhere cheaper. And like I said above, I'm not saying Antarctica - I'm saying Nassau or Newark. Commute like millions of other people across the country, including people that live in those places now. 3) Set price controls - and guess what - someone still doesn't get to live where they desire to live. The only difference is that the person that can't live there now has more money - but they still become a disillusioned voter if we "reflect" on whether they are getting what they "desire".
On choosing the wrong degree, the solution is to admit that was your mistake and either qualify yourself for a better paying job through more education and training or move somewhere where you can still do what you want to do career-wise and afford to live comfortably. Mamdani is not going to relieve people's student debt and he is not going to start paying social workers $200,000 a year - even if people think he "speaks to solving their problems".
I am reflecting on what people desire. But reflecting on it, analyzing it, and concluding that MAYBE they are being unrealistic is not dismissing them.
Surely, living in the DC area you ought to know that a house in Upper Caucasia NW quadrant is at least twice as expensive as a similar one in vibrant SE quadrant. Whites are a shrinking percentage of the population and therefore are being corralled into smaller areas. Ergo, desirable real estate becomes more expernsive.
Whites are not shrinking as a % of the population in DC or most other major cities. In fact they’ve been increasing and gentrifying many neighborhoods, which is making them more expensive.
From 1970 to 2013 in Prince Georges County, MD, just outside DC, whites went from 567,600 to 135,000, or a decline of 76%, mostly working class. They were replaced by middle class, affirmative action government job blacks moving from DC. The percent of blacks went from 16% to 63% while the percent of whites declined 86% to 15%. You don't care about that type of gentrification, right?
You are really are clueless, aren’t you? The whole reason PG County became more black is because black people left DC and moved there. DC became less black, more white. Nothing you said disproves my comment. The same thing is happening in Atlanta, Denver, and many other cities.
Government crowded out the student loan market loaning any amount of money to anyone for any degree, bankruptcy laws changed so you can’t discharge student loans, and universities took advantage by raising tuitions, salaries and building brochure-ready gyms and “amenities “.
Total disaster started by government good intentions—paving the way to hell…
When something fuck up in some major way over the long term you can bet it was something collectively « managed », so usually the government but it can be other groups too. The reality is that no single individual would allow for things to get that bad.
Incorrect. If you graduated in 1991, you really have no clue what they're going through. It may not have occurred to you, but that's 35 years and a Soviet Union ago.
It would be hard to imagine a less sympathetic demography. Has anyone ever combined such affluence (by historical or global standards) with so much self-pity? They imagine some better -- perhaps perfect -- life and are miserable and indignant over the ways they can find reality falling short from that imagination. They are their own curse. Their sentence is to life with themselves, but now with more taxes and less policing. Their path to prosperity is the same as that for everyone: offer goods and services that people want. It's work! But it works. Their path to happiness is the same as that for everyone: stop ruminating about yourself and serve some higher purpose. Their inability or unwillingness to do either is on them as are the consequences.
Chris, this is great advice if you're talking one on one to a young adult. If, however, this is how you think conservatives, or even mainstream liberals, should talk to this demographic, don't be surprised if the group response is downright hostile.
Quite possibly. Sometimes people are really set in their ways. I'll have someone come to me essentially saying "I am falling behind financially and am miserable!" to which I assume they want to change those attributes and make different/better decisions. Given that it is a big target to be better than they're doing, I offer some better ideas. Then they defend and explain what they're doing, why, and why they need to keep doing the same thing even after they said it was terrible. It is like someone who is lost but insists on going in the same direction without getting help. Oh well...
Adaptation.
Their appalling and overweening sense of personal entitlement is disgraceful.
Yeah, if only they drank fewer grand lattes they’d definitely be able to afford to buy their own place.
They'd be closer!
Actually, maybe not. When it's 0.05% of the cost in question, potential social connections and the doors they open may be more valuable than the money, including for the goal measured against.
What higher purpose? When family ends, there are no higher purposes. All that exists beyond family is a worthless death that no one will remember. A dead end has no more purpose than a cow or a rat.
This is 100% spot on. I am the person who this article talks about. Undergrad 3.5 GPA. 3.65 MBA GPA. Corporate job since I was 22. Was not able to afford a home with my partner in Greater Boston until I was 37. Unsure if we will be able to have children due to cost and age. I was promised in 2005 if I followed the script I would have a “good job” and a stable life. Until college educated people are able to afford to buy a home and have kids by age 30, expect politics to become more radicalized.
If the top 1% percent don’t give away some of their wealth like they did during FDR’s presidency, then you’re going to see more and more Mamdani’s emerge.
So, you want the 1% to give money to you, not to the truly needy. Who made such a promise to you in 2005? You don’t say what your undergrad major was in. Some major are productive, some are actual harms to society.
Ive been waiting for the first libertarian “it’s my own fault” reply. To answer your question, I was a business management major at a business school then I got my MBA as I mentioned. I wasn’t wise enough at age 18 to realize I needed to “learn to code”, get an engineering degree, or whatever major you think is worthy enough. Your libertarian “it’s my fault” response proves my point.
And to answer your snarky “who told you life would be good in 2005”, it was the general zeitgeist of the time that college was the ticket to a good job and a middle class life and trade school was for losers. This was enforced by family, high school, and culture. Not sure how old you are but any millennial who grew up then would agree with me.
If we create a society where you need to get into the top 10% of income earners to be able to afford a house and kids by 30 then politics is going to destabilize like you are seeing. Telling people they aren’t valuable, lazy, or stupid like you just tried to do to me isn’t a good way to earn their votes.
To answer your pro 1% libertarian argument, you tax the 1% at higher levels to fund Universal Child Care and Medicare for All. You outlaw private equity from buying single family homes. You steamroll NIMBYs concerned about more density and lower property values and you build more homes.
I know one thing for sure. If you try to tell people like me I made poor choices and I’m too stupid and not valuable enough you’re going to see more and more Mamdani politicians emerge.
Private equity owns less than 0.5% of the housing market. Stop listening to idiotic far-left (also happens to be far-right) propaganda. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/corporations-arent-the-reason-your
> You outlaw private equity from buying single family homes.
I can see how that sounds appealing, but the way it would actually shake out is extra bureaucratic friction for all potential home-buyers, not increased supply. What's needed is a higher tax rate on vacant lots. https://www.gameofrent.com/ That would make it *unprofitable* for private equity to hoard potential living space - existing rules about maximizing shareholder value can handle the rest.
I am not a libertarian, more of a Roosevelt New Dealer. Mamdani’s policies will lead to national poverty. We need to enforce antitrust laws, reverse the Clinton era financial “reforms” and go back to the New Deal financial regulations, plus end the asset price accumulation caused by loose money since about 1995. I agree that the US middle class has been screwed, but the last thing we need is programs that create more of an entitlement mentality, either among the top 1% or anyone else.
Bernie’s social democracy is the 21st century version of a FDR’s New Deal. No one is talking about seizing the means of production. We just want to have a higher floor like they do in European countries. The Nordic countries are the happiest countries in the world for a reason.
If we keep going down our current path the country is either going to end up with fascism or economic collapse/ disintegration.
I bought my first house in greater Boston when I was 37 too, I don’t know but not being able to buy a home sooner never felt off to me. Actually I feel incredibly fortunate to have had an inflation adjusted annual ROI of over 10% on that investment, it’s pure dumb luck. What age “should” people be able buy their first home in one of the wealthiest metro areas in the country?
Nice to hear from someone who is local. The example I always use was my mom was a secretary at a hospital in Boston and was able to support three people on her salary in a nice apartment in a Boston suburb (dad had drug abuse issues) which would be impossible today. We would either be in the street or living with grandparents.
A generation ago college educated people were able to graduate at 22, work a few years and be able to afford a down payment on a home by 27-28 or so. Now if you don’t climb the corporate ladder super quickly you can’t afford a down payment until your mid 30s if at all. This also requires you to live with parents for 5-10 years out of college. If you move in with roommates after college and aren’t making six figures you will never own a home.
I appreciate that perspective and
no doubt that paradigm has changed, hospital admins make around $50k in Boston now which surely isn’t enough to do what your mom did. Obviously lack of housing is an issue, but also let’s recognize that the value add and skills required to be an admin has changed. I’m a middle manager at a Fortune 500 company, and I just don’t need anyone to make copies or maintain my calendar like was required in the past. I’m betting your mom would run circles around the people in those jobs today.
DSA’s explosion is directly a result of this comment from last year.
Things are difficult right now, we all agree. But why would you elect someone who is going to make things worse? Mandami is going to chase out apartment builders with his talk of rent freezes. He isn’t going to raise anyone’s salary. Crime will get worse with fewer police. I don’t get it.
These people will never be republicans, if they’re really so downwardly mobile they’ll just lean into their progressive identify. Think “clinging to their guns and bibles” or whatever Obama said, just a different flavor.
The beatings will continue until the US removes 99% of H1B, OPT and other VISAs focused on bringing in cheap labor to compete with US citizens. All other "solutions" are handwaving.
Peter Turchin identified this as Elite Overproduction - that there are never enough elite roles for those trying to climb the ladder - and when there are far more who want the roles than roles that exist, chaos follows. Figure out a way to address elite overproduction and you reduce the chance of chaos.
So accurate. I am a lawyer. The profession is broken.
Nothing new. This is the class the bolsheviks called the petit intelligentsia. You say they are “culturally elite.” It would be more accurate to say that they perceive themselves as culturally elite. They believe their masters degree from Columbia gives them the right to look down on everyone else, and they certainly believe they should be better paid than a plumber, even though their benefits to society are much less than the plumber.
Now you're just engaging with a mass psychosis that began with the Battle of Hastings. Nothing you see is real.
Great analysis. As someone who was born in 1984, went to and graduated college I can attest to the struggles my generation has experienced. I'm in a group chat with several of my college buddies and much of the conversation revolves around how hard it is to maintain even a somewhat comfortable middle class lifestyle that is even a fraction of what our parents enjoyed. My feeling is the boomer generation, in politics, in business and nearly everywhere else has simply held on too long and now the next generation, multiple decades into adulthood, has grown resentful and that resentment has yielding candidates like Mamdani.
Born in 1988. As I already commented above I couldn’t agree more. My family were blue collar workers and never made a ton of money. They live in old average houses and due to asset inflation are now millionaires while millennials can’t afford to buy homes and start families until their mid-late 30s. Waiting for the boomers to die so we can get their inheritance isn’t an economic plan. I’m not surprised at all politics is destabilizing.
What stops them from moving to someplace where it’s cheaper to live? Lots of nice places out there
Simple answer: lack of jobs and remote work opportunities and a corresponding lack of potential mates.
Respectfully, is commuting not an option? I live in Japan and commutes of 40+ mins door to door are very normal. I don’t know if that is feasible as don’t know NY well though. Is that an option there?
It's very expensive to live without roommates in anything within a 40 minute door to door commuting distance of Manhattan's office districts (including Jersey) unless you are in price-controlled housing (which New York has a lot of! This is the only reason it's possible for its median household income to be similar to Portland, Oregon). For market rate properties $2000 - $2500 is possible but you have to really hunt and be prepared to fight to sign a lease on the spot, and that's for a walk up with no washer/dryer or dishwasher.
They look down on commuters as “bridge and tunnel people.”
I've read many horror stories about US subways (open drug use, perverts harassing people, murders, etc)
Only the city managed ones.
They want to live in stylish neighborhoods in New York. Some of this is a genuine economic squeeze, but some of it is lifestyle choice. Phoenix and Houston are beneath them.
Another factor, in addition to the comments below, is the glamor of "prewar" styles of architecture. We will never get back the "real" materials that made those turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses so great, but one way to lure young professionals out to the suburbs is to move away from that "subdivision" style of postwar housing with the low ceilings and hollow-core doors. This may be a great style for some, but many younger renters/buyers would regard living in such digs as a lowered quality of life. New builds need vaulted ceilings and crown moulding if they can possibly swing it - and does anybody plaster walls anymore?
Unaffordable housing begin with the great society in 1960s. Unaffordable healthcare began with government subsidies and exacerbated by the ACA of OBama. Educational failure from indoctrination and student debt explosion began when OBama federalized student loans and used high interest rates to pay for the ACA. Life . The Federal Reserve is not independent it manipulates our currency and democrats flood the economy with free money and then inflation eats up any wage gains. The government is the problem and maybe the country is too far gone to reverse course.
You'll never convince the right wing economy policy team anything is wrong. They see the high asset prices of stocks and real estate as a feature not a big. They still call for more tax cuts to help capital owners save even more money...parking it in US assets...pushing prices even higher..
One possible area for common cause: we've tried to lower prices by subsidizing demand and constraining supply and have found that tactic at odds with day one of Econ 101 stuff re: how prices work. Instead we could try the opposite: deregulate supply. Allow builders to build. Get rid of delays and red tape. The solution to high prices is high prices if markets are freed to do their thing. If the government stops supporting demand and instead lets supply grow, prices might fall. It works in theory and in practice.
One easy place to start would be with federal legislation limiting building codes to meet minimum safety standards. Currently they require all kinds of things that are niceties but not essential. Most builders will tell you the Residential Energy Code is one of the factors contributing unnecessarily to housing costs. In addition to energy there are several other codes (structural, electrical, plumbing, etc.) and these codes are proprietary intellectual property, meaning to even know what is required to comply with the law you have to pay over $100 each just for the pdf versions.
The second piece of low hanging fruit to fix is real estate commissions. If you have 20% equity and the realtors take 5-6% of the full sale price every time the house turns over, that represents a huge transfer of wealth. As in 1/4 of your equity.
My eyes were opened decades ago when I first toured an old European city .. not one of the apartment complexes would meet an American ADA standard to allow it to be rented out. The very aspect that made it charming .. narrow, twisting gothic stone stairways and no place to retrofit an elevator even if one were demanded. (An aside, I was stationed at the Pentagon during it's update to meet ADA standards (9/11 fortuitously struck an empty section being renovated) - so one could directly compare the original unique and cool architecture - one felt like they were working in a James Bond movie - with secret ratholes, hide-out and impossible secretive mazes with the new huge waste of space open area sections that resemble any modern grand escalator-ridden and broad avenued shopping mall. There never has been a government Department of Aesthetics to even provide input to whatever functional priority of the moment. (Which in the case of the Pentagon, seems to be to ensure it is able to handle the day when every worker there is in a wheelchair.)
I would read more about this, if you care to recommend anything.
I suspect there’s a broad disconnect about what is “essential.”
Sorry I misunderstood your original comment.
Here is a study by the National Association of Home Builders that indicates regulatory costs are about 24% of residential home prices: https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/news-and-economics/docs/housing-economics-plus/special-studies/2021/special-study-government-regulation-in-the-price-of-a-new-home-may-2021.pdf
This is more of a summary article on regulatory costs: https://frontlineadvisorygroup.com/the-impact-regulation-in-home-construction
Building codes in particular are promulgated by an NGO called the International Code Council and if you click through you can see the monthly and annual document license fees which exceed $2,000 for the full set per year: https://codes.iccsafe.org/codes/i-codes/2024-icodes
Finally I highly recommend a Substack call Construction Physics, although I’m not sure if they’ve specifically covered building code cost impacts: https://www.construction-physics.com
Personally I’d like to see minimum building standards developed as a free open source document with certification to specific levels, for example Grade 1 through 5 showing basic and structurally sound to more upscale deluxe building standards. This could be developed with certification and inspection provided by private engineering companies. That would put the consumer in a position to buy what they want and can afford without impairing safety. It would also take governments out of the loop, as construction delays are a common cost driver due to slow permitting by municipalities.
I think he was asking you to recommend something for him because he wanted to read more about the topic. I’d be interested as well.
Thank you for pointing that out. I’ve edited my comment accordingly.
Can't talk about subsidizing demand and constraining supply of housing when the Democrats want an unlimited stream of cheap foreign labor to come into the country unabated and unvetted.
Yeah, that’s the problem in NYC, not enough buildings
Correct. Turns out lots of people want to live there. Go figure.
And it's an island.....
Reply to Mr. Pete: Actually, the high asset prices were caused by the Clinton administration’s “reform” of the financial system and the Obama administration’s quantitative easing. I agree that both of these administrations were bought and paid for by the oligopolistic on Wall Street, but they were hardly right wing.
Where are the parents of these 20-, 30-, and 40-somethings?
As a group those parents inherited beaucoup bucks from their parents. The biggest inter generational wealth transfer in human history. Those parents went to college and grad school when it was dirt cheap. They bought their houses when houses were dirt cheap. (Most college educated kids today had parents and grandparents with lots of advantages; social mobility is long gone in the US.)
Why didn’t those parents pay college tuition for their kids from their inheritances and incomes? Why don’t they sell their houses and downsize and recycle the gains into gift down payments for their kids? Or move out and give the house to the kids?
Why should those of us of a certain age who lived beneath our incomes and used our inheritances to pay for our kids’ education and help them with down-payments to buy houses cover the costs of others who were selfish and spending on themselves like drunken sailors?
For that matter, why should we cover all the college debt that arose from tuition having to pay for bullshit administrative jobs in colleges and universities over the last 35 years? Maybe the endowments should pay off unsustainable student debt or the institutions should be sued for fraud and have to sell their real estate (just like the RC Church atoning for sexual abuse). You could build a lot of high rise housing on the campuses in NYC.
But those are Zohran’s friends (and specifically his dad and his dad’s friends). And come to that, the NYT informs me that the Mamdanis have a big, fancy family compound in Uganda. God only knows how many Black Ugandan families were dispossessed to produce Mamdaniworld. Maybe that could be sold off too and Zohran can do his beach holidays at Rockaway.
I was hoping you'd discuss the neighborhoods, rather than just punditing vaguely. Where does the working class in NY live? What was the pattern in Manhattan? Who did the rich people vote for? Who did the ethnic eighborhoods here and there vote for?
I’m done rescuing fools. Let they/them live with the consequences of their folly. They are determined to collapse the republic because they expect to rule from the ashes. Most will hang from lampposts when the Jacobins take over. The madness is evident. There aren’t enough good men left to come to the rescue.
Thank you. Brilliant analysis. The suffering middle class has been an overlooked issue for years. Too successful to get the benefits of the poor. Too poor to enjoy the benefits their seemingly decent salaries just can't provide.
The author gives too much credit to that voter base. In reality they just vote by emotion, and that emotion is determined by whichever candidate racks up the most number of "oppressed" points in their warped woke chart.
If it's that easy, why haven't you maneuvered them into voting for who you want instead?