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Affording an apartment can be difficult today as rents have steadily increased over the years while income has remained stagnant.
Inflation-adjusted rents have climbed 64% since 1960, the Wall Street Journal reports, yet real household income has gone up a mere 18% over the same period, according to Apartment List’s analysis of US Census data. It’s numbers like these that make Jimmy McMillan say, “The rent is too damn high!”
Several factors have contributed to the rise in rents such as the shrinking middle class and rising construction costs. But one thing is clear—there is no evidence this half-century long trend is going to reverse on its own. [WSJ]
