Meet the Seattle families living communally to bring down costs – in pictures https://www.theguardian.com/environment#USA #Seattle #CommunalLiving #CostOfHousing #community #HousingCosts/gallery/2026/mar/19/seattle-co-op-homeownership

U.S. Consumer Price Index for February rose 0.3% month-over-month and 2.4% year-over-year, meeting market expectations, with core CPI increasing 0.2% monthly and 2.5% annually, driven primarily by housing costs while rent showed the slowest growth since January 2021.
#YonhapInfomax #ConsumerPriceIndex #CoreCPI #HousingCosts #Inflation #FederalReserve #Economics #FinancialMarkets #Banking #Securities #Bonds #StockMarket
https://en.infomaxai.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=109407

President Lee Jae-myung reaffirmed his administration’s resolve to crack down on real estate speculation, warning multi-homeowners of the end of tax breaks and urging policy action to address soaring housing costs impacting South Korea’s youth.
#YonhapInfomax
#LeeJaeMyung #RealEstateSpeculation #MultiHomeowners #HousingCosts #CapitalGainsTax
#Economics #FinancialMarkets #Banking #Securities #Bonds #StockMarket
https://en.infomaxai.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=103450

Youth unemployment in South Korea is rising, with longer job search periods leading to lower incomes and higher housing costs, prompting Bank of Korea warnings of a potential '8050 problem' similar to Japan's.
#YonhapInfomax #BankOfKorea #YouthUnemployment #HousingCosts #8050Problem #LaborMarketRigidity #Economics #FinancialMarkets #Banking #Securities #Bonds #StockMarket
https://en.infomaxai.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=100476

Charted: Where Inflation Has Hit the Hardest (2000–2025) – Visual Capitalist

Economy

Charted: Where Inflation Has Hit the Hardest (2000–2025)

Published17 hours ago, on January 13, 2026

By Dorothy Neufeld, Graphics/Design: Miranda Smith

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Where Inflation Has Hit the Hardest (2000–2025)

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Key Takeaways

• Overall U.S. inflation has increased 92% over the past 25 years.
• The cost of many essentials, like hospital services, childcare, medical care, housing, and even the cost of food, are rising at a faster rate than inflation overall.
• Meanwhile, the cost of technology (software, TVs, toys) is generally becoming cheaper on a relative basis.

Affordability remains a potent issue in America, with both Trump and Mamdami campaigning on high costs of living.

Even though inflation has fallen to around 2.7%, prices are about 25% higher than in 2020. Meanwhile, certain sectors, like housing and healthcare, have far outpaced this rate, putting growing strain on consumer wallets.

This graphic shows U.S. inflation by category, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The chart was inspired by Mark J. Perry’s famous “Chart of the Century”, which you should also take a look at.

ℹ️ Note: The BLS calculates CPI by tracking price changes for a fixed “basket” of goods, adjusting for quality improvements over time. For tech products, rapid gains in performance mean consumers get far more value per dollar, which shows up as large price declines even if sticker prices don’t fall.

Ranked: Inflation By Category in America

Below, we show the cumulative rate of inflation across key goods and services between 2000 and September 2025.

CategoryConsumer Price Inflation 2000-2025🏥 Hospital Services+275%🎓 College Tuition & Fees+196%🧒 Child Care+185%🩺 Medical Care+129%🏠 Housing+111%🍽️ Food & Beverages+104%🚗 New & Used Vehicles+25%🛋️ Furniture+9%👕 Clothing+2%📱 Cellphone Services-43%🧸 Toys-74%💻 Computer Software-75%📺 TVs-98%🛒 All U.S. Items+92%

Hospital services have consistently outpaced inflation over the past several decades, with costs rising a stunning 275% since 2000.

For perspective, hospital services increased 6.9% annually as of June 2024, faster than nursing homes (6%), prescription drugs (2.4%), and overall inflation (3%). Today, nearly one in five dollars spent in the U.S. economy goes toward health care, up from one in 20 in 1960.

More broadly, prices for essential services have significantly outpaced overall inflation, fueled by consolidation and labor-intensive operations.

College tuition and fees have also skyrocketed, rising 196% since 2000. Driving up costs are the hiring of more faculty and increased spending to attract students. Additionally, state funding has seen a long-term downtrend, meaning that colleges must rely more on tuition.

As we can see, housing inflation has jumped 111% compared to a 92% increase for all U.S. items. When interest rates hovered near 0% in 2020, it turbocharged housing demand, leading prices to spike to multiple record highs, even as interest rates increased.

Goods Under the Average, or Seeing Deflation

Interestingly, we can see that new and used vehicle inflation is far below the overall inflation rate, at 25%, averaging an annual increase of less than a percent. Like the housing market, however, prices increased notably over the pandemic amid supply chain bottlenecks.

On the other hand, software has seen a clear deflationary trend, driven by the rise of cloud computing and subscription models. Furthermore, TV prices are 98% cheaper than they were at the turn of the century, thanks to technological advancements and rising manufacturing efficiency.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Charted: Where Inflation Has Hit the Hardest (2000–2025)

#20002025 #92PerCentIncreaseInflation #Affordability #AffordabilityCrisis #BureauOfLaborStatistics #ChildCareUp185 #CollegeUp196 #Data #Economy #HospitalCosts #HospitalServicesUp275 #HousingCosts #Inflation #MecicalCareUp129 #UnitedStates #VisualCapitalist #Visualized #VoronoiApp

Bloomberg: #Trump is directing #FannieMae and #Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion of #mortgagebonds in an effort to bring down #housingcosts ahead of the November #midtermelection. Mortgage bonds rose and #home-lender #stocks rallied.

Less ICE. More homes.
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/12/04/less-ice-more-homes-jimmy-gomez-bill/
@gailwaldby #housingcosts

Why baby boomers are the wealthiest generation – The Washington Post

How baby boomers got so rich and why their kids are unlikely to catch up

The wealthiest generation holds more than $85 trillion in assets thanks to economic conditions Gen X, millennials and others would be hard-pressed to replicate.

November 18, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. EST, Yesterday at 5:00 a.m. EST, 7 min

(Washington Post illustration; iStock)

By Shannon Najmabadi and Federica Cocco

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The reasons come down to timing and time: Americans 75 and older bought homes and invested in stocks well before such assets exploded in value, according to Edward Wolff, an economics professor at New York University. In a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, he examined the four decades between 1983 and 2022 when those older boomers saw their wealth climb and their younger peers recorded relative declines.

“It’s astonishing how their relative wealth has taken off in the last 30-plus years,” Wolff said. “They started out as among the poorest groups in terms of wealth back in 1983.”

The wealth of baby boomers — especially those in retirement —is a reflection of the uniquely favorable economic conditions that occurred during their working lives, Wolff and other economists said. So much so that it would be difficult for younger generations to emulate, especially as they are more likely to be weighed down by debt or child care costs.

Housing costs also factor into the widening divide between baby boomers (born from 1946 to 1964) and everyone else, experts say. Generation X (1965 to 1980), millennials (1981 to 1996) and their successors increasingly dedicate a bigger portion of their budgets to mortgage or rent.

People might assume boomers’ wealth reflects superior financial decision-making, if they don’t consider the historical context that allowed boomers to build their wealth over decades, said Olivia Mitchell, professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Why baby boomers are the wealthiest generation – The Washington Post

#babyBoom #babyBoomers #boomerKids #boughtHomes #childrenOfBoomers #economicConditions #economy #federicaCocco #generation #housingCosts #nationalBureauOfEconomicResearch #rich #shannonNajmabadi #stockInvestments #wealth #wealthiest #workingLives

Vance Blames Immigrants, Biden in Response to Affordability Questions

In an interview with Fox News last week, Vice President JD Vance downplayed the significance of rising inflation and costs for consumer goods in the U.S., claiming that any price increases are not due to Trump administration policies. Unlike President Donald Trump, Vance recognized that costs were up compared to last year. But he blamed former President Joe Biden for the increases.

Source

This post has been syndicated from Truthout, where it was published under this address.