Last Thursday’s debate among the New York City mayoral candidates highlighted an issue that is among young Americans’ top concerns today: affordability. Democrat candidate Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner, stated that affordability was the city’s most important problem. Independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican hopeful Curtis Sliwa concurred, arguing the socialist Mamdani’s proposals are impractically expensive.
Mamdani’s emphasis on the affordability issue has benefited him politically, as young people in the city struggle to find decent, affordable housing and are increasingly willing to consider his agenda of greater government intervention and control.
That would be an awful mistake because socialism, regulation, and other government policies are what have caused the affordability crisis that has arisen across the United States. The current U.S. economy is anything but free, and the problems of today’s American economic system are caused almost exclusively by government. Young Americans’ struggles in achieving home ownership reflect the decline of economic freedom in the United States.
Government regulations directly increase the cost of housing, accounting for $93,870 of the $394,300 average price of a new home in the United States in 2021, about a quarter of the home’s cost, notes Paul Emrath, Ph.D., in a study for the National Association of Home Builders.
University of Central Arkansas professor Jeremy Horpedahl observes that “in 2023 it took 31 percent more hours of work to buy a square foot of the median home, compared with 1971.” That has its greatest effect on young households: with housing prices increasing rapidly, those who already have mortgages or fully own their houses gain an ever-greater economic advantage over the young. U.S. home sales in 2024 and 2025 are at their worst in 30 years, Fortune reports.
Hellbound and Down 
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