If you’re counting on your next raise to boost your income high enough that you’ll be able to afford to buy a house, recent data on the housing market might throw cold water on those hopes.

Home prices continued their upward trend in July, breaking new records according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index released Tuesday. Nationwide prices rose 0.2% over the month and were up 5% o♎ver the last year. While that’s a slower increase than the 5.5% annual🅠 gain in June, home prices are still growing much faster than paychecks. 

According to data🍸 from the Bure𒊎au of Labor Statistics, home prices have risen more than twice as fast as average hourly earnings since the pandemic hit.

Housing Shortage Hurts Affordability

Tuesday’s report highlighted one of the biggest challenges facing the U.S. economy: persistent and worsening unaffordability stemming from a housing shortage that’s been brewing since the Great Recession. Fortunately for would-be buyers, mortgage rates have fallen recently as the Federal Reserve moves to lower its inf🌌luential interest rate. But a lack of homes on the market has kept 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:prices on the upward trajectory they’ve been on since the pandemic hit, keeping the affordability picture grim.

How to solve the housing shortage has become a hot political topic. Vice President Kamala Harris has made housing proposals front and center of her economic agenda, 澳洲ꦐ🎐幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:promising to build 3 million affordable homes and create a $25,000 tax credit for first-time buyers. Former President Donald Trump said he would tackle the problem by allowing developers to build on federally owned land.

Jared Bernstein, President Joe Biden’s top economic advisor, told Investopedia in an interview that the country's biggest economic problem is the lack of affordable housing.

“The shortage of affordable housing is one of the biggest pieces of unfinished business we faꦚce,” he said.