The hidden economic crisis

Annie Lowrey

The Atlantic

Despite the rosy economic numbers of recent years, said Annie Lowrey, many Americans are being bled dry by “the spiraling cost of living.” Call it “the Great Affordability Crisis.” Take a close look at where families’ money goes and you can see why in the 2010s “for millions, a roaring economy felt precarious or downright terrible.” Housing costs have outstripped wages in roughly 80 percent of America’s metro regions, and even in rural areas there’s been a jump in the number of households spending half or more of their income on housing. Young people simply can’t afford to move to areas where the best jobs are. Then there’s health care. Soaring premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket costs are “casting millions into debt.” College tuition has skyrocketed, and student-loan debt is “a trillion-dollar stone placed on young adults’ backs,” with nearly 50 million adults working off debt loads. Finally, child-care costs have leaped 2,000 percent in the past four decades, putting a crushing burden on young families. In other wealthy countries, child care and education are “public goods,” and no one goes bankrupt because they get sick. Until we muster the political will to follow suit, “the Great Affordability Crisis hides in plain sight.”

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