2016-05-26washingtonpost.com

The affordable housing situation is bleak. So bleak that "in no state, metropolitan area, or county can a full-time worker earning the prevailing minimum wage afford a modest two-bedroom apartment," according to the report.

To afford a two-bedroom apartment at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, a worker would need to work 112 hours a week, every week, according to the report. That means workers "would have no remaining time during the week for anything other than working and sleeping."

...

NLIHC proposes a formula reducing the mortgage interest tax deduction that benefits homeowners. For years, there have been various proposals to change the popular deduction. Whatever reform that might eventually be approved, the coalition wants a portion of the savings to go to affordable housing.

The main benefit of eliminating the mortgage interest tax deduction would actually be to allow home prices to fall to more affordable levels. Of course cutting a sacred "middle class" benefit (even if done so gradually that there'd be no nominal decline in home prices) is politically impossible.

Alternatively, they could make all consumer debt interest (i.e. credit card) tax-deductible. That would be fair.



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