Just looked up some housing data and wow, the rent situation has gotten absolutely wild. Back in 1980, what was rent in 1980? The median was sitting at around $243 a month. Fast forward to 2022 and you're looking at $1,388 for that same space. That's not even accounting for how crazy things have gotten since then.

Here's the thing that gets me though - rent's been climbing almost 9% annually since 1980, but wages? Not even close to keeping up. Someone making the average salary in 1980 (about $29,300 when you adjust for inflation) would've spent maybe 10-12% of their income on rent. Today the numbers are brutal - half of all renters are spending over 30% of what they make just on housing. Some people are literally paying half their paycheck just to have a place to live.

The wild part is this didn't happen overnight. The 1970s recession kicked things off, but then the 1980s just locked in this affordability crisis that never really went away. We've basically been living with the consequences ever since. Makes you wonder how the middle class is supposed to build any kind of financial stability when rent keeps outpacing everything else.