A decade of federal housing aid, and the affordability gap grew in all 50 states
by Stephen Dinan · The Washington TimesThe federal government keeps pumping money into housing assistance programs, but it’s done little to affect the actual affordability of obtaining a home, according to a new study by a spending watchdog group.
Open the Books painted a grim picture of home prices, which are so far beyond the reach of young adults today that it’s slipped as a yardstick of achieving the American Dream.
The group crunched a decade’s worth of income and home price data and found that in every one of the 50 states, prices rose faster than household incomes.
In 48 states, the gap was at least 10 percentage points.
Idaho led the way, with incomes rising a strong 68% but housing surging more than 151%, for an affordability gap of 83 points.
Louisiana had the smallest gap, at about 7 points.
Open the Books said there was no real consistency in the lists, with red and blue states rounding out both the top 10 and the bottom 10. Rhode Island, a decisively Democratic state, was in the top 10, while California and Maryland were in the bottom 10.
The organization then looked at $460 billion in Housing and Urban Development funding during the decade, compared it to the states, and could find scant evidence that the spending affected the affordability gap.
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“We don’t think the dream of homeownership should be demolished, but government’s role needs to be taken down to the studs,” the group said in a statement to The Washington Times. “Shoveling more money at the problem hasn’t worked. It’s time to get inflationary spending in control, and focus on ways every level of government can clear the path toward cost-effective construction.”
Open the Books took a deep dive into California, where the organization said it would take an American with an average income 19 years, socking away 10% of pretax income, to save up for a down payment.
California saw a relatively modest affordability gap increase from 2015 to 2024. Incomes grew at 55.3%, while home prices rose 82.5%.
But the state already had some of the most expensive housing in the country — and a massive homeless population.
HUD recorded 187,084 homeless in California in January 2024, up nearly 60% compared to eight years earlier.
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Open the Books said California’s allocation of funds to housing is mostly in the form of loans it expects to be repaid, or tax money it doesn’t collect.
And those benefits go disproportionately to people who already own homes.
“In other words, the state’s accounting quietly favors the housed over the housing-insecure and presents a headline number that flatters the effort,” the report concluded.
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Stephen Dinan
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