Bret Devereaux

Ah, but what about the very small percentage of the American population who happen not to be upper middle class. Easy to forget them I knowhttps://twitter.com/asymmetricinfo/status/1468343020793876481 …

There *is* a left tendency to pretend nobody in the US lives well, which doesn't do the movement any favors, but when the other side is going "ah, but would you REALLY trade your spacious single-family home for social democracy?" I don't think it's us that needs to get a clue

I think it is fair to say that the experience of poverty in the USA is insufficiently considered in the analysis, but its worth noting that the square-footage advantage in the USA runs through almost all of the income ladder and like, 60+% of Americans own their own home.

But it's also worth considering the quality of those homes and the resale value, right? Like, what proportion of those of 60% have something worth selling or passing down to their kids?

Also how does that number look generationally

Well, it was 65% in 1960 and it is 64% now, though it got all the way up to 69% in the early aughts and all the way down to 63% in 2016, so there is long-term stability in the statistic, but you are right to note that millennials trail older generations in home buying.

In terms of home value, the issue frankly is that housing values are too high, not too low. That's part of what is keeping millennials out of home-buying and why I think we need policies that lead to building a lot more houses, even if it means that per-unit values stagnate.

Nevertheless, it is just statistically true that even among the younger generations, actually owning a house on both a per-unit and per-square-foot basis is more affordable in the United States than in most - nearly all - countries.