Homeownership (was What did the Anti-War Movement Lead To?)

[Max B. Sawicky]

> 
> >My guess is that this
> >is the force behind an apparent age effect, since
> >such family heads tend to be younger than average.
> 
> But there's also a steepening of the age-wage curve, no? Or is it 
> just that
> a two-tier system prevails at the macro level, with younger cohorts at a
> lower starting level (relative to elders), and economists are being
> optimistic projecting steep increases for them?

These sound the same, roughly, meaning wages
are a positive function of age, but in either
case it wouldn't necessarily mean things were
absolutely worse now for the young, relative
to 20 yrs ago.  Nor would projections have
anything to do with whether today is worse
than yesterday.  Mainstream economists tend
to project slow wage growth, relative to the
past, which prediction tends to support scare
stories about social security and fiscal policy
in general.  Dean has a new report on this which
will be released in a couple of weeks.

We had a report seven years ago on housing
affordability which calculated
that it had gotten much worse, but I don't
remember whether it controlled for gender
or family structure.  The author was Michael
Stone of UMass/Boston.

MBS