By Derek Thompson | The Atlantic
(Editor’s note: Opinion pieces are published for discussions purposes only.)
The U.S. homeownership rate has fallen to a 19-year low. Why?
Let’s begin with the youths, as we must. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a journalist in possession of a negative statistic must find a way to blame Millennials for it. In 2012, Jordan Weissmann and I observed that young people were turning away from homes and cars, the twin engines of the economy. Two years later, the homeownership rate is still declining for Americans under 35 (most of whom are Millennials, i.e. born between 1982 and 2000).
But there’s another cohort turning away from homes even faster—Gen-X. That’s right, Americans between 35 and 44 have had the sharpest drop in homeownership since the recession struck, far outpacing the national rate. (Pedant’s note: Some people like to leave hateful comments about Y-axes that don’t begin at zero, but it’s almost impossible to see homeownership changes at that scale, so we’re repeatedly violating that rule throughout this post.)
