If there are two things that are scarce in the US it’s good jobs and affordable housing.
As we’ve shown on any number of occasions, the “strong” jobs market is largely a fabrication — a creation of the BLS which, like the BEA will do what it has to in order to ensure that the myth of the US economic “recovery” can be sustained.
In the real world, those with newly-minted master’s degrees are forced to wait tables [5] while those fortunate enough to find work labor under non-existent wage growth while the Jamie Dimons of the world (perhaps that’s unfair, there’s only one Jamie Dimon) get rich [6] on the back of Fed policy designed to enrich the wealthy while everyone else awaits a trickle-down “wealth effect” that will never come.
As for affordable housing, the following graphic from the National Low Income Housing Coalition betrays a sad fact. In no state in the union can a minimum wage worker afford a one bedroom apartment [7].
[8]
But all is not lost, because apparently, there are some places in America where the Goldilocks combination of good jobs and affordable housing actually exists. The following interactive graphic from Zillow shows where the so-called “sweet spots” are:
