I thought it was a well known problem that in the US class disparity (i.e. the gap between middle class and upper class) is increasing. The middle class is evaporating, becoming very rich or borderline poverty. Am I confused? WaPo isn't really saying anything new or controversial.
It's more like the middle class is bifurcating between upperish middle class and lower-middle class. In-demand tech workers, doctors, high-level admins/managers, etc. are getting higher and higher wages while other professions that used to be middle class as starting to stagnate and fall behind such as low-level office workers, journalists, teachers, mid-to-low level managers, etc. I wouldn't consider either group to really be upper class, but I guess there's always going to be differences in how people are sorted into those categories.
I think the issue is that the article is inflammatory click-bait because it makes it seems like rich people are getting a break while poor people are getting shafted. It's not until you've read through most the entire article that they finally get to the point, which is that 'rich' people are buying houses in the suburbs/exurbs now that they can work remotely. Unsurprisingly this means prices are spiking in those areas while rent for high-end apartments are shrinking as demand dries up. So rich people aren't really catching a break so much as exiting the rental market in major cities and redirecting their spending to the suburban housing market.
> I think the issue is that the article is inflammatory click-bait because it makes it seems like rich people are getting a break while poor people are getting shafted.
Why? Do you seriously think that is untrue? Go talk to some poor people. Hell, just talk to someone who is 18-29: there is a 52% chance they are stuck living with their parents[1]. We're definitely getting shafted over here.
It's just supply and demand. The rich are leaving the cities for suburbs, so more of the higher end apartments are available. Which will lower those rents because there is low demand and high supply.
Meanwhile, there is a moratorium on evictions so cheaper apartments are not becoming available at a natural rate. So you have high demand and low supply, which will drive prices up.
Of course there are many other factors in play too. Such as zoning issues preventing new building, NIMBY preventing affordable housing being built, environmental restrictions preventing building in certain areas, etc. Plus the fact that developers will make much more money building luxury apartments than they will make building low income housing. Sometimes governments will offer tax rebates to builder of low income housing, but this then upsets a lot of the same people who want the low income housing to be built so it goes on and on.
> Meanwhile, there is a moratorium on evictions so cheaper apartments are not becoming available at a natural rate.
If there weren't a moratorium, then there would be a surge of homelessness. Is that somehow better?
The amount of available high-end apartments never mattered to the people who couldn't afford them. Where the rich people move has literally zero effect on that.
The fact that rich people are leaving "high-end" apartments vacant should demand that rent go down in those apartments. That's what would be happening if supply and demand actually had an effect. Instead, even with significantly fewer tenants, landlords are still able to charge obscene rates for their "high-end" apartments, leaving no supply for the growing population of poor.
So what part of this is inflammatory click-bait? The rich are getting a break (more housing opportunities at lower cost) while the poor are getting shafted (fewer housing opportunities at higher cost).
This isn't just about zoning and NIMBYism. The housing exists, and so do the people who can't afford it. Landlords are simply demanding a higher return than the poor can afford, without a care in the world about homelessness, just as every socialist in history predicted. This is a system of greed, and we desperately need it to change.
