On Mar 23, 2007, at 5:28 PM, James Heartfield wrote:
> I should have known that the relatively high home ownership in the
> US would
> be transformed into proof of Americans' low incomes. (file under
> quaint
> beliefs of the LBOers: US immiseration)
>
> Doug writes:
>
> " it's interesting
> that the countries with the highest ownership rates are on the
> periphery, historically poorer countries like Ireland and Spain, and
> the lowest are at the core, like Germany. The state with the highest
> homeownership rate in the U.S. is West Virginia, which is our own
> internal periphery."
I should have known that a statement that was mostly about Europe would be transformed into proof of something about American incomes. (file under quaint beliefs of James Heartfield: a generalization about Europe is secretly a comment on the US).
Here's Oswald's data, from his note to figure 2 (h = homeownership rate, u = unemployment rate, both ca. 1999): "The observations are Austria (h = 54%, u=5%), Belgium (65, 12), UK (65, 6), Denmark (55, 6), France (56, 11), W. Germany (42, 7), Italy (68, 12), Netherlands (45, 4), Spain (80, 18), Sweden (56, 6), Switzerland (28, 3), Ireland (76, 10), Finland (78, 13). Data for transition nations are not reliable and are omitted."
For U.S. states, the correlation coefficient for their rank in median income and their rank in homeownership is -0.24 - not a huge number, but it is negative, showing that homeownership is inversely correlated with income. The states with the highest homeownership rates are West Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama; the lowest are New York, California, and Hawaii.
Doug