You’re not qualified to be a teacher if that’s truly what you’re taking away from this exchange. Im genuinely floored you can’t understand me, I’ve made it so clear.

Please stop assuming Im an idiot, I know what rate means. The “home ownership rate”, As Defined By Your Source, measures the percent of homes that are owned by one of the occupants. It does not measure the percent of the population that owns a home.

Do I need to screen cap the part of your source’s notes that specifies that for you or do you genuinely not understand why those two measures are different?

Please address the previous comment. You do see how the home ownership rate does not track the total number of people who own a home right? Im worried that a teacher cant interpret the sources they are providing correctly. If we interpret your source the way that you are it implies that there are more homeowners in the US than there are homes. You read the chart wrong.

What it actually says is that out of all the homes in the US polled by the census X percent of them were occupied by the home owner. That is not the same thing as X percent of all people in the country own a home. The homeownership rate can increase while the per capita rate of home ownership decreases.

I guess you didn’t look at your original source again like I asked. It does not track the number of people who own homes. That chart tracked the “homeownership rate” which is specifically the percentage of homes that are occupied by the owner of the home.

Hypothetically If you have 100 people and 50 of them live in a house, of those 50 lets say 25 own the home and 25 rent the home, then the per capita rate of people that own homes would be 25% while the “homeownership rate” as defined by your source would be 50%.

I think you can demonstrate that homeownership is becoming less accessible over time.

I don’t think the america=bad trope is valid though.

From my perspective I think a decline in home ownership is the expected and inevitable result of increasing urbanization and the inherent logistical challenges of building high population density cities. Its a trend that we can observe in most if not all countries. Thats not necessarily bad, its just a societal transition from the suburban to urban.

The homeless rate has been declining, which indicates that the housing situation is improving. However when compared to the increase in rental rates for apartments and the relatively stagnant rental rates for houses we can only say that the number of housed individuals is increasing, we cannot say the number of home owners is increasing.

The links I provided above show the per capita rate of home ownership is declining overtime while the per capita rate of renters is increasing, at least over the last 20 years. Personally I think we should try to reverse this trend, but it may not be logistically possible at our population level.

My general impression is that we are heading toward an era where the majority of people are renters and I think we can expect a further class divide to emerge between renters and owners. This is not unique to America, but rather a consequence of the global trend toward high density urban development and exacerbated by the neoliberal economic policies that have been dominant since the 80s that have caused wages to decouple from the inflation rate.

Sorry for being dismissive and combative. The more I’m researching the less clear the picture appears to be. Take another look at your original chart.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

Notice “The homeownership rate is the proportion of households that is owner-occupied.” The homeownership rate doesn’t actually tell us much about per capita home ownership, just the rental rate for houses. The link I provided used the same homeownership metric.

Im struggling to find the actual number of people who live in a house they own, but we can extrapolate from the homelessness rate and apartment rental rate. This article seems like a good summary:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/19/more-u-s-households-are-renting-than-at-any-point-in-50-years/

Compare those rental numbers to the total homeless population:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/555795/estimated-number-of-homeless-people-in-the-us/

Seems like the per capita number of homeowners is declining. Further, considering wages aren’t keeping up with inflation and housing cost increases are outpacing inflation this paints a picture that home ownership is becoming less accessible.

Its only pedantic if the detail is irrelevant. Im trying to show you that that detail completely undermines the point you’re trying to make. Im not arguing against your point at all, I agree with you. Im saying the way you justified that point was with insufficient data. If you cant see why the chart I provided makes your point better than the chart you provided then this is a waste of time.

If being obtuse and calling me pedantic makes you feel like a winner then I'm happy for you.

This conversation is boring now though.

Glad we could devolve so quickly to insulting each other.

You should reread the comment chain from the top down then. Your comment absolutely implied that millennial ownership was increasing. Overall ownership includes millennials does it not?

You are missing my point. I agree that 50% of millennials own homes.

I am trying to say that the data you provided does not prove that. You got the right answer doing the wrong thing basically.

Im being confusing I guess. The chart you originally provided as evidence that millennial home ownership is increasing over time did not actually prove that millennial home ownership has been increasing. The reality is that it has been increasing, we agree on that.

However if home ownership increased disproportionately amongst boomers relative to millennials it would skew the data you linked to show overall ownership increasing while ownership amongst millennials could be decreasing. You can only reach the conclusion you did if the data is normalized such that home ownership rates for specific age groups is compared at the point in time when each group was the same age.

Im not disagreeing, just pointing out your conclusion doesn’t follow from the data you provided. Millenial home ownership is just shy of 50% right now.

The implication that these metrics improving over time leads to better living conditions isn’t necessarily true. Being objectively more comfortable and safer won’t necessarily make you subjectively happier. Consider the old adage that ignorance is bliss.

It might be harder to exist in a safer more comfortable world if you are also (due to information spread) more aware of how your existence impacts others or the nature of your existence itself. The world improving in the way you’re saying might be inherently tied to emotional and existential struggles that make the quality of life improvements irrelevant for many people.

How are you getting home ownership rate for millennials out of that data?

This link is much more relevant

https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/charts/fig07.pdf