…if you could give me one thing to do to supercharge the economy, I would say, end discrimination across the American economy. Discrimination is holding back our economy. It’s holding back our middle class.

Title in large red block letters against plain off-white background: The Riches of This Land: The story of what went wrong and how to get it back. Author Jim Tankersly

This is the conclusion of journalist Jim Tankersley, who covers economics and tax policy and recently published The Riches of This Land: The Untold, True History of America’s Middle Class.

He has spent over a decade studying the American middle class; how it became a symbol of the American Dream following World War II, how the middle class built one of the world’s most powerful economies, and how powerful interests undermined the gains of the working class. From the 1950s through the 80s, middle-class households with a single income earner could afford a home, car, health care, a college education…even vacations and retirement savings.

The erosion of the middle class means that today, most full-time workers are underwater as full-time work too often leaves many in poverty and debt. At the start of 2021, analysis indicates the extended pandemic and recession have resulted in the Sharpest Rise in Poverty Rate in More Than 50 Years.

…if you were to design a recession to hurt most the people who have most helped to build the American middle class, you would design basically this one.

Tankersley advocates for policies that help those people responsible for the growth and productivity of the middle class from the 50s through the 80s, which he describes as, “women of all races…men of color and immigrants.” We hear time and again that these are the workers hurt most in the current recession. Women are the default caregivers when schools and child care centers are closed; they are most likely to care for elderly parents, and they the most likely to lose employment opportunities or promotions as a result.

Next to women, people of color and immigrants—often serving as essential workers—have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, the lack of health care and sick leave, and the cascading impacts on employment options. This follows a steady decline in purchasing power and stability over the past 40 years.

This perspective draws the same conclusion as those pursuing economic resilience from a fair housing approach, which recognizes the access to opportunity afforded by housing types and price points distributed across regions, communities and neighborhoods. When everyone has access to stable housing and essential community assets, we all benefit from better overall health outcomes, increased productivity, and more people moving from public assistance to family supporting, gainful employment.

In his interview with Fresh Air co-host Dave Davies, Tankersley notes that, “…if you could reduce discrimination across the economy and invest in each other’s success, then we really could see this upward flow of talent and this boom of job creation and growth.”

(Created for housing and community stakeholders by Erik Kingston, PCED, IHFA’s Housing Resources Coordinator)

Expanding housing choice has benefits far beyond fair housing compliance and civil rights; housing diversity is equally important for community and economic development strategies. Housing types and price points that reflect the needs and incomes of all community residents support a more stable labor force and educational system, reduce social costs of poverty, and lead to economic prosperity for all of us.

Conversely, housing speculation and inflation that drive prices up and tenants out—assisted and magnified by NIMBY opposition to new residential development or density—create externalized costs that are shifted to local taxpayers, employers, consumers and communities. A lack of housing within reach of workers drives demand for wage increases and leads to business contraction and overall inflation, which impact all residents.

Housing that is affordable to a range of incomes serves as a perpetual wage subsidy to local employers. — Dr. Peter Dreier

Housing can be made affordable one of two ways:

Increase wages indefinitely to subsidize real estate speculation—this in turn fuels overall inflation in goods and services
Increase taxes to subsidize employer and consumer costs—through housing choice vouchers and development incentives that keep rents low for essential workers (who do not earn a living wage)

Strictly speaking, the laws of supply and demand don’t apply equally to housing and things like oil or corn. Building only luxury apartments in one area isn’t the same as conditioning permits on some lasting community benefit, such as deed-restricted housing serving diverse incomes. But when neighbors consistently reject distributed residential density and diversity (competition for tenants), landlords can increase rents unchecked.

Smaller local developers proposing medium density or mixed-income housing operate on slim margins; they are often unable to overcome NIMBY-driven delays and hurdles. This leaves most housing development to larger (often out-of-state) corporate developers with significant capacity and legal teams to drive the housing market.

Beyond speculation and NIMBY, the net costs of housing are influenced by transportation, energy, land, construction, regulatory and financing factors. In some rural Idaho communities, workers must often commute long distances to find housing within their budget, while the cost to heat or cool inefficient housing can exceed rent in some cases. So we created the ‘T.R.U.V. (Transportation + Rent + Utilities +Visitability) Index’ to reflect real-world cost considerations.

Location, location, location. Housing costs are driven by land costs, but the value of land is dependent on its proximity to publicly-subsidized infrastructure, water, assets and resources. A building site in a roadless area without services or water is less than a site near libraries, schools, health care and high-speed broadband. Learn more here.

One could also make the argument that the value of a neighborhood reflects the people who make that neighborhood livable, safe, provisioned and maintained. In that way, essential workers provide a subsidy to the value of our homes and community when they sacrifice time, health, safety, and opportunity by commuting long distances or living in substandard, overcrowded, or unhealthy housing—or are unhoused.

We hope to update and expand tools and resources below to be more useful to policy makers and housing stakeholders. These data can help inform a larger statewide housing needs assessment and resource allocation process. See also “What cities and counties should know about fair housing ‘ for additional information from the 2022 Analysis of Impediments.

Assessing Housing Markets Needs

Housing Market Overview Idaho > Current Version
Workforce Housing Business Leader Survey 2023
Housing-Needs-Assessment

County data sets for demographics, poverty and housing/transportation cost burden.

*The contractor for the 2014 version based ‘cost-burden’ data on the American Community Survey, while the contractor for the 2018 release used cost-burden estimates from HAMFI and CHAS data, a subset of the ACS estimate.

Redlining, Exclusionary Zoning and Density Considerations

NEW! Top code reform priorities for the housing crisis 03.28.2023

A widespread shortage of affordable housing is causing local jurisdictions to amend their land-use regulations. Here’s a list of 10 highly effective reforms, with notes on why they are needed. https://tinyurl.com/2lfrqw63

“…redlining as a practice was technically barred with the passage of the Fair Housing Act and Housing and Urban Development Acts of 1968. Yet even after redlining was made illegal, policies such as residential zoning laws and the development of a credit score continued inequality in housing markets.” —Urban Institute: Assessing the legacies of historic redlining