Americans are breaking records, and not in a positive way. U.S. home prices have hit an all-time high, according to a CBS News report. At the same time, fewer young people are having kids, with women over 40 having more babies than teenagers on average.
Homeownership — once a hallmark of the American dream — is more costly than ever before. The median price for single-family homes sits at $446,400, and $380,000 for condominiums and co-ops.
According to real-estate firm Redfin, Americans needed an income of $116,780 to afford the typical U.S. home this April. In 2019, the same firm found that Americans needed to earn only $61,812 to afford the typical U.S. home. The average age to buy a first home now is at an all-time-high of 40.
For young people, the American dream is far less attainable than it was for previous generations.
As the housing crisis continues, a bipartisan housing affordability bill — the 21st Century ROAD To Housing Act — became law, without the president’s signature. The law aims to speed up the building of new homes, addressing the housing shortage America currently faces. The law also contains some restrictions on institutional investors buying single-family homes, but lifts these restrictions for new housing “that is built to rent,” The New York Times reported.
This also comes as states are moving to eliminate property taxes. Floridians will vote on an amendment to phase out property taxes this November, while Indiana legislators are considering a proposal that would provide property tax relief for seniors. Meanwhile, younger people are paying for the Medicare and Social Security of the older generations who will benefit from property tax cuts.
Addressing the housing crisis is just the first step to reversing the problems facing young Americans, however. For the first time in American history, women over 40 are having more babies than teenagers. While previous generations often bought homes, got married, and had children in their 20s and early 30s, these milestones are being pushed further and further back.
The average age of moms giving birth in the United States rose to nearly 30 in 2023, according to a Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report. The average age of new first-time moms is also increasing simultaneously.
This data is no surprise, as birth rates are declining rapidly in the United States and the broader Western world. The U.S. fertility rate hit an all-time low in 2024 to 1.6 children per women, the CDC found. This sets America well below the replacement rate of 2.1. All the metrics show that people are waiting longer to get married and have children, causing sharp declines.
According to a report from the Heritage Foundation, this problem is not only economic, but also cultural: “[W]hat people value is shaped and transmitted by cultural institutions, including family background and religion. Social pressures, from popular culture to guidance counselors to parents, now encourage almost everyone to go to college and delay getting married and having children.”
America’s native population is dying out due to low birth rates, thereby shrinking the workforce. With these changes, mass immigration becomes more and more inevitable.
As The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman wrote in an article about birth rates: “A country can always import labor — the United States can import labor for the foreseeable future if there is a shortage of workers. But what a country cannot import is a culture, a heritage, a set of particular values that will help the republic endure.”
These illegal migrants are causing a spike in housing prices, according to a paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The influx of migrants caused a demand shock to the housing industry, making illegal immigration responsible for “about 30% of the total growth in house prices and 20% of total growth in rents over the boom period for the average local market.”
As young Americans face unstable economic conditions and hit milestones later in life, illegal migrants stand to benefit from a rapidly-changing American society.
