The decade-long scramble to keep the American Dream alive shows one clear fact: federal money poured into housing programs did not make homes meaningfully more affordable. A conservative watchdog reviewed state-level price and income data and found home values outpaced household earnings in every state, even as Washington disbursed hundreds of billions for housing. This piece looks at that analysis, the numbers behind it, and why local rules and zoning may be the real barrier to affordable ownership.
Open The Books compared a decade of home-price growth with household income growth and built what it calls an “Affordability Gap.” That gap is simply how much faster home prices rose than median household incomes between 2015 and 2024. The result: prices outpaced incomes in every single state, a stark indicator that federal spending alone isn’t closing the gap.
The watchdog found the gap hit double digits in 48 states, and 17 states saw price growth outstrip income growth by more than 50 percentage points. Those are not small variances; they’re life-changing differences that push homeownership out of reach for many families. When price increases so far outpace paychecks, saving a down payment becomes an uphill battle for younger buyers.
To test whether federal money helped, the group tallied roughly $460 billion in HUD spending across 18 programs tied to affordability, availability, rent control and homelessness from 2015 to 2024. Then it compared each state’s HUD funding with its Affordability Gap and found virtually no linear relationship. In short, more HUD dollars did not predict smaller affordability gaps across states.
“The further you get from a prospective homesite, the less effective or efficient any spending or regulatory tweak is likely to be,” Christopher Neefus, vice president of communications for Open The Books, told Fox News Digital. That observation points to a simple Republican case: federal cash can’t fix local land use rules or zoning that choke supply. Local obstacles require local fixes, not more one-size-fits-all Washington programs.
“In this case, nearly half a trillion dollars was shoveled into the states over a decade, but it offered no meaningful effect for Americans whose incomes were outrun by prices in every state,” Neefus said. That blunt line captures why conservatives argue for regulatory relief and permitting reform instead of larger federal spending packages. When spending doesn’t move the needle, policy must change focus.
HUD responded by noting work done under the prior administration, highlighting regulatory rollbacks and fraud enforcement. “Under President Trump’s leadership, HUD is focused on delivering results and making housing more affordable for every American willing to work for it,” the agency told Fox News Digital. “We’ve uncovered nearly $495 million in fraud, rolled back burdensome Biden-era policies, and helped more than one million Americans achieve homeownership.”
“Washington doesn’t have all the answers, which is why we’re empowering state and local leaders to advance proven solutions, cut barriers, and increase housing supply,” the spokesperson added. That aligns with the watchdog’s conclusion that solutions live closer to the land where homes are built and where zoning gets decided. State and local leaders can change rules faster and tailor solutions to local markets.
Longer-term trends make the problem more stark: between 2000 and 2024, median household income nationally rose far less than the median sale price of a single-family home. Median household income increased 99.7% in that stretch, while the median single-family sale price jumped 150.1%. That gap helps explain why the median age of a first-time homebuyer has climbed to 40.
“If you look at how long it would take a median income household to save up for a strong down payment, it’s really no wonder that younger generations might be redefining what the American dream means for them,” Neefus said. For Republicans, the policy takeaway is clear: dismantle needless permitting barriers, free up development where communities want it, and empower local governments to boost supply. Federal funding alone, the data suggest, won’t restore the path to ownership that past generations took for granted.
