Mr. Biden orchestrated the sanctions against Russia, causing energy and all other prices in the Western world go through the roof. Now nothing will help, no matter what he or his vice president, Harris, will say.
"MILWAUKEE -- Not even Midwestern manners can disguise Wisconsinites' anger over how high housing prices have climbed.
With median sale prices up 8% in the past year, according to Redfin, Wisconsin is the unhappy winner of the biggest price jump among the presidential battleground states. Prices in the state are up at double the U.S. average.
Some voters here said their frustration over housing could determine how they will vote in November's election. That is a headwind Vice President Kamala Harris, the expected Democratic nominee, will have to contend with in Wisconsin and in other battleground states, as her rival Donald Trump tries to link her to President Biden's stewardship of the country.
In the Milwaukee metro area, residents spoke of feeling a dual cost-of-living and identity crisis in a city that has long prided itself on affordability, especially compared with its down-lake cousin, Chicago.
"I always thought we were a more reasonable place to live," said Kayla Lange, who grew up in the nearby suburb of Kenosha and lives with a roommate in an apartment downtown. The 24-year-old says her $45,000 salary as an IT recruiter leaves nothing left over after paying for rent, food and installments on her student loans. "It's gotten out of control, and I blame the people in charge," she said.
The housing issue shows how Harris has her work cut out for her, particularly in Wisconsin given how fast housing costs here are rising. Wisconsin was the first state Harris visited after she announced her intentions to replace Biden on the ticket. A recent Fox News poll found Harris and Trump tied in the state.
A July Wall Street Journal poll showed that voters rank housing as their second biggest concern when it comes to high prices -- behind only groceries. That is a shift from a November 2021 Journal poll, which found that housing was ranked below the cost of groceries, gas and utility bills.
The frustration over housing helps explain why voters feel so pessimistic about an economy that by many measures is good. Biden, like any president, is limited in his ability to significantly lower housing prices, since housing costs are influenced by interest rates and the supply of and demand for homes. Both factors are largely out of his control.
"People are voting based on their sense of how they're doing financially, and the degree to which they feel like they have opportunity in their lives is closely linked to their housing," said David Dworkin, president of the National Housing Conference, an affordable housing advocacy organization.
Looking at average yearly salaries across dozens of industries in the Milwaukee metro area, the National Housing Conference found that around a third of occupations paid workers enough to purchase a home with 10% down in 2020. Only 6% allow them to afford the same today.
A protracted house hunt was enough to make Nahona Moore, 28 years old, plan to change her lifelong record of voting for Democrats. Moore, a self-employed makeup artist living on the border of Milwaukee and Wauwatosa, said she blamed both Biden and Harris for "not making anything better."
Before he dropped out of the race, Biden and his top advisers had zeroed in on housing costs as one of the president's most serious economic vulnerabilities heading into the election. Now Harris is set to campaign on much of the agenda Biden's team had laid out.
The president has proposed housing reforms, such as creating a new $10,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers and providing as much as $25,000 in down-payment assistance for first-generation home buyers. Biden last month called for legislation that would withhold key tax breaks from landlords who control properties with more than 50 units if they don't agree to limit rent increases to a maximum of 5%.
In 2012, when Harris was California's attorney general, she negotiated a settlement with big mortgage companies to give relief to struggling homeowners.
The administration has also made some moves using executive actions, such as creating a program to save homeowners thousands of dollars in closing costs on certain mortgage refinancings. The Bureau of Land Management is moving closer to selling public land to local governments in Nevada to build new affordable housing.
Trump hasn't put forward a detailed housing plan, but the Republican platform called for opening up swaths of federal land for new-home construction and providing tax incentives to ease homeownership." [1]
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