Home Prices Have Outpaced Teacher Wages by 5x; Truck Driver Wages by 3x

Despite not being included in the consumer price index, 87% of Americans are concerned about housing costs, and 69% worry about their descendants’ ability to purchase a home.

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Unfortunately, these concerns aren’t unfounded. Using data from Zillow and the Census Bureau, researchers at TruckInfo.net found the following trends.

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Home prices have grown 2.5 times faster than wages since 2011

Since 2011, the median home in America has increased by more than $181k while the median wage has only increased by $15.8k.

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To compare home affordability over time and across geographies, a commonly used metric is the home-price-to-income ratio. From 1985 to 1999 this ratio was just 2.6. 

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As of 2022, the home-price-to-income ratio was a staggering 6.7, meaning that homes were 2.5 times less affordable than from 1985-1999.

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Home prices in Nevada have increased 6 times faster than wages since 2011

At the state level, Nevada has seen the most dramatic ratio of home price to wage growth while Florida, Arizona, and Idaho have all seen homes increase 4 times faster than wages.

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Regardless of educational attainment or occupation, wages haven’t kept pace with home prices

While software developers and lawyers have fared better than teachers and truck drivers, wages have failed to keep up across the board.

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Nationally, teachers have seen home prices grow 5 times faster than their wages. Truck drivers have fared slightly better but still worse than the national average with home prices growing 3 times faster than their wages.

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Full Data

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Methodology

Home price data was sourced from Zillow while wage data was sourced from the US Census Bureau. "Home Price Inflation to Wage Growth" is defined as the growth in home prices from 2011 to 2022 compared to the growth in wages over the same period.

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Large cities were defined as cities with a population over 350,000; mid-size cities as populations from 150,000-349,999; and small cities as populations under 149,999.