Fully 28% of households now have just one person living in them, more than double the rate from 1960 (13%), reports the US Census Bureau. As a result of continued shifts in household types and family dynamics, the average household size is 2.53 this year, down from 3.3 some 50 years ago.
Single person households aren’t just restricted to youth. In fact, almost one-third (29%) of adults aged 65 and older live alone. In a fairly dramatic shift, householders aged 65 and older outnumber those under the age of 30 by almost a 2:1 ratio (31 million and 15.8 million, respectively), whereas these householders had been at virtual parity in the late 1970s. (Households are occupied housing units, and householders are the people in whose name the housing units is rented or owned. They must be at least 15 years of age.)
* We use lines of credit to borrow for discretionary purchases, we lease cars, pay by subscription for things more.
I don't see whats wrong with this. Availability of credit has helped a lot. For instance, mortgages used to have much higher interest rates and shorter term
> * We have more gadgets. (Note that this has been proven to make people any happier.)
I thought we were talking about wages not happiness. What's the point of wages if you don't have access to goods?
Credit has largely been the best thing to happen in the world. But lower interest rates have not made housing more affordable. Neither have longer terms. Both of these things, in the long run, just make build-able land more expensive -- which keeps the mortgage payment / income ratio pretty constant in the long run.
Obviously Real Estate is highly cyclical. So you can look at any two points in time and make conclusions like low interest rates or longer terms are great for affordability. But if you look over the long run, it's just not the case.
Land price is a function of interest rates, taxes, lending standards, purchasing power, and speculation -- there are no inputs like with a refrigerator. And land is not a commodity in the same vein as, say, corn. If the demand for corn goes up, people grow more corn. If the demand for land goes up, VERY RARELY do we make more land.
Fully 28% of households now have just one person living in them, more than double the rate from 1960 (13%), reports the US Census Bureau. As a result of continued shifts in household types and family dynamics, the average household size is 2.53 this year, down from 3.3 some 50 years ago.
Single person households aren’t just restricted to youth. In fact, almost one-third (29%) of adults aged 65 and older live alone. In a fairly dramatic shift, householders aged 65 and older outnumber those under the age of 30 by almost a 2:1 ratio (31 million and 15.8 million, respectively), whereas these householders had been at virtual parity in the late 1970s. (Households are occupied housing units, and householders are the people in whose name the housing units is rented or owned. They must be at least 15 years of age.)
* We use lines of credit to borrow for discretionary purchases, we lease cars, pay by subscription for things more.
I don't see whats wrong with this. Availability of credit has helped a lot. For instance, mortgages used to have much higher interest rates and shorter term
> * We have more gadgets. (Note that this has been proven to make people any happier.)
I thought we were talking about wages not happiness. What's the point of wages if you don't have access to goods?
https://www.marketingcharts.com/demographics-and-audiences-7...