Cost of Living, Housing & Economy
Housing Affordability
Government made housing scarce. Zoning, permitting, and fees built this crisis — and supply, not subsidies, fixes it.
The Stakes
A married couple, two incomes, doing everything right — and the starter home their parents bought at 28 is now a bidding war they lose at 38. This didn't happen by accident and it didn't happen by greed alone. It happened because for fifty years, local governments made it illegal, slow, or ruinously expensive to build.
The Receipts
Every figure cites a primary federal source. Tap a chip to check it yourself.
~2xThe ratio of median home price to median household income has roughly doubled since the 1980s — homes cost far more years of income than they did for the prior generation.
Census / HUD ↗millionsThe U.S. housing shortage is estimated in the millions of units — supply has lagged household formation for over a decade.
Freddie Mac / HUD analyses ↗~24%Regulation — permits, impact fees, mandates, and delay — accounts for roughly a quarter of the cost of a new single-family home, and an even larger share of a multifamily unit.
NAHB ↗Houston vs. coastWhere it's legal to build, prices behave: light-zoning metros add supply and stay affordable relative to coastal metros with decade-long entitlement fights.
Census permits data ↗flatConstruction labor productivity has stagnated for decades while nearly every other sector improved — a regulatory story, not a technology one.
BLS ↗Their Best Argument — and Why It Fails
The steelman
The market builds luxury units, not affordable ones. Without subsidies, vouchers, and rent control, working families get nothing.
The rebuttal
Subsidies chase a shortage; they don't cure one — demand-side money in a supply-capped market bids up the same scarce units (see: college tuition). Rent control is one of the few policies economists across the spectrum agree shrinks supply over time. And new 'luxury' units filter: today's high-end build is the decade-after-next's workforce housing, and the research on filtering chains bears it out. The affordable unit is the one that's allowed to exist.
The Conservative Fix
- 1
Legalize starter homes: end single-family-only mandates on your own land — property rights are the conservative position.
State / Local - 2
Shot-clock permitting: approval deadlines with automatic approval on government delay.
State / Local - 3
Cut impact fees and parking mandates that pile five figures onto every unit.
Local - 4
Condition federal transportation dollars on pro-supply zoning.
Federal - 5
Sell surplus federal land near growing metros for housing.
Federal
Answer the Muster
Who decides this: Your city council and state legislators (zoning and permitting are local/state) plus your U.S. House member (federal land and transportation conditions)
I'm a constituent in [district]. Housing is unaffordable here because it's too hard to build. I'm asking you to support legalizing starter homes, a permitting shot-clock with automatic approval on delay, and cutting impact fees. Where do you stand on letting us build?