The generational divide over affordability in the Trump economy is all about housing

On the one hand, President Donald Trump has presided over a 1.3% increase in real average weekly earnings since the start of his second, nonconsecutive term. Median household incomes are up an average of nearly $3,000 in real terms. While inflation did indeed briefly spike in the aftermath of the Iran offensive, all signs indicate that the oil supply shock is limited as inflation abated last month.On the other hand, Trump’s approval rating is trending perilously close to 40%. And every available poll indicates it’s the economy, stupid.Because Donald Trump is not Joe Biden, he understands that this is an issue for his party, and headed to Michigan to change the narrative. But in a manner dangerously evocative of his feckless predecessor, Trump seems unable to understand that prices, not employment, are the crisis imperiling his popularity. No matter that manufacturing — the sector endlessly touted by Trump in the Great Lakes State — has actually lost over 100,000 jobs since January of last year. Our 4.2% unemployment rate remains more than a full point below the post-war average, and the labor market simply doesn’t rank high on the concerns of an aging electorate. The No. 1 problem remains affordability, and despite the Iran war bringing gas prices to the top of mind, the real affordability bugaboo missed by the headlines is the generational divide in the housing market.(Washington Examiner illustration; Getty Images) Let’s start with the polling. For all that gas prices have dominated the headlines, a CBS News poll found that only 19% of respondents considered the price at the pump to be a financial hardship. And even with the recent spike in gas prices, Pew Research found that fewer voters say they are very concerned about the price of gas (56%) than the price of housing (64%). Meanwhile, fewer than half of respondents said they’re very concerned about unemployment.Only 29% of those CBS respondents approve of Trump’s handling of inflation, including 25% of those under 30. And while those voters are the least likely to say that gas prices have posed a financial hardship, younger voters rate the economy more poorly for their own personal financial prospects. These young voters overwhelmingly blame the cost of housing, which — unlike gas prices or groceries or any other consumer good that is cleanly tracked by inflation data — isn’t easily measured.As we’ve written about extensively at Tiana’s Take, the Bureau of Labor Statistics relies primarily on a measure for housing costs called “owners’ equivalent rent of primary resident,” which is just the estimated rental price the owners of a home would list if they were to rent out the home in which they live. So the BLS’s measure of inflation does not account for the fact that most homeowners with mortgages lock in an effective inflation rate of zero. A boomer one decade into a 30-year fixed mortgage can ignore the housing market, while a young couple that needs to graduate from a one-bedroom to a two-bedroom to fit a family can feel devastated by the current industry.TIANA LOWE DOESCHER: THE DSA’S DUMBED-DOWN DEFINITION OF ‘WORKING CLASS’ IS DESIGNED TO DECEIVETrump’s sinking approval ratings and Republican chances in the Nov. 3 midterm elections seemed to have a political salve in bipartisan housing legislation. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Legislation, enacted on July 11 after the 10-day window for Trump to sign or veto it had passed, aims to increase housing supply, streamline regulations, and restrict large corporate buyers.Trump made a political faux pas in refusing to give the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act the proper presidential blessing it deserved. But it’s not too late for the White House to bear-hug the first federal housing reform bill in a generational way and tether the administration’s visage to the supply-side reforms to come. The data may be better than Trump’s critics will concede, but denying the real constraints faced by the youngest generation locked out of home ownership won’t work any better than Biden’s four-year campaign to gaslight the electorate out of believing their lying eyes.Tiana Lowe Doescher (@TianaTheFirst) is an economics columnist for the Washington Examiner.