Rents over the last two decades have risen much faster than employee pay, contributing to an escalating homelessness crisis in the U.S.

A growing number of Americans are ending up homeless as soaring rents in recent years squeeze their budgets.

According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country’s unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said.

    • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
      16·
      10 months ago

      People drop off the unemployment numbers after 6 months as they’re considered to have “given up” searching for work. They’re one of many metrics the government uses to gauge how “good” our “economy” is doing that are absolutely useless and paint a false narrative.

      • 🖖USS-Ethernet@startrek.websiteEnglish
        4·
        10 months ago

        Same when it comes to the stock market. Apparently, if the stock market is doing well, the “economy” is doing well. Pretty sure the stock martket doesn’t help the majority of Americans in any meaningful way.

        • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
          2·
          10 months ago

          It literally destroys lives every 3 months when companies try to bury things that normally happen but don’t mean profit under the rug by laying off employees so they can keep their stock market pimp daddy happy for another quarter.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
        4·
        10 months ago

        Another “wonderful” metric is “family income.”

        Yes, family income has been steadily increasing since women entered the workforce the 60s-70s. Geez I wonder what could possibly account for that, it must be that having 2 incomes became mandatory to survive we’re all just doing better!

        I wonder how life is like for those who don’t have a family income… Source: perpetually single, make 60k (in a VHCOL area) and have to live in a garage. (No I can’t “just move,” I am “uneducated”…)