Ketchum, Idaho, Has Plenty of Available Jobs, but Workers Can’t Afford Housing

Unless they start allowing shanty-towns, which seems like where this is going.

It‘s like a new version of town vs gown. Cost of living of course skyrockets…

They could build more housing, but no one wants to get caught holding the bag if the boom turns to a bust as the world returns more to normal.

And even if they did choose to build the housing, housing next year doesn't solve the issue of housing today.

That said, where I live we are building plenty of housing but we still can't fill jobs. Why exactly is hard to say, but general consensus is that government unemployment benefits are currently compelling enough that people will trade taking a hit on their income in exchange for not having to work. Can't blame them, I guess.

Seems like a painful readjustment in the coming years as we unwind all the emergency decisions we made last year.

Now, "everyone" can afford a vacation property, but depending on how much money you have, it depends on low interest rates, and as-close-to-full occupancy on AirBnB as possible just to pay the mortgage.

It's like when "hey, maybe our household could use a second income" turned into "everyone needs 2 earners to get by". It's inflation.

I reached the same conclusion as you about people "condensing expenses". I was puzzling over how the economy is on fire, and yet businesses "aren't able to find workers" (read: workers who will accept what they're offering in pay) on the back of a huge unemployment spike, where you'd expect that previously-unemployed folks would be desperate for a paycheck. Some people point to Covid unemployment assistance, which is going away, but they must have compressed those living expenses in order to afford to demand higher wages.

My other proposal would be to enact laws against buying a home and not living in it, but again, not sure how legal/morally right to prohibit property ownership just like _that_

I short, I don't think there is anything abnormal about your claim that they are starting at $14 and unable to find anyone.

You learn how to ski, then you have fun in the winter.

And this assumes no children, so no costs for child care. Throw that in the mix and it can actually cost some people money just to work.

We need to fix the incentives when businesses would rather scream and close their doors than make less and pay a living wage for their location.

If anything can be learned from Seattle (my home), a politician's proximity to a problem is the key indicator for how much that problem will need to be actually solved versus just used as a tool for virtue signalling about how others should live.

Ha, I've never thought about that (not American) - I suppose it's no different than choosing a provider for anything else (like travel or couriers) or in-housing it (like pensions) but it does seem funny to me to think of politicians having employer-provided health insurance.

“The plural of anecdote is not data” I repeat to myself after 4 of my 25-35 year old working/newly lower middle class (HVAC/RN/CBP) cousins have purchased homes over the past 6 months in an area where salaries, educational attainment, and life expectancy especially are still chugging along up the slopes.

Start with some national protests/riots around wages, housing, etc. Then politicians will magically pass laws to require 50% of new development to be for public housing, for rents not to rise above 2x the median income, and for the cost of public housing not to exceed 2x the comparable cost of private development. Add in closing tax loopholes / taxing the rich more if needed. Corporations and the rich will bitch and moan, but it won't mean jack shit against passed legislation.

It has to happen everywhere at once, or the rich will just move development somewhere else. But they (should) also know the same shit will happen elsewhere.

Or were you referring to Hailey?

One project I was personally familiar with was delayed for over 10 years because a neighbor would challenge the plan. Each time found a different ordinance to nit-pick with. It was catch-22; if the nit-pick was fought, it caused delays, if the plans were modified, then it was now a new plan, and he could start all over with challenges to it.

Another great example is that people living in a tiny town in Virginia were able to get a major bridge over the potomac completely redesigned from a suspension bridge to a draw-bridge (making it more expensive, a shorter lifespan, and less amenable to shipping) because the towers of the planned suspension bridge would be visible from their houses. Wikipedia calls this "considerable study and public debate[1]"

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_Bridge#Replacem...

This is a common tactic in Coeur d'Alene with the commercial units. They leave them empty instead of lowering rents because the property value is largely based on what you can rent them for. I have been watching and there are several buildings which perpetually have empty units with for lease signs.

Just started happening more with the rentals. Big investment companies came in and bought up a ton of houses at way above market value and held them (not speculation...they knocked on my parents door too). Then they either leave them empty or make vacation rentals from them. This lowers the availability of houses. It was not a coincidence that these companies came to the town April 2020-September 2020 and made these purchases...I have heard stories about the unreal prices people got for just standard houses local. So now that the availability is down they hold the houses and trickle them out slowly as the prices raise due to competitive bidding from people moving to the area who don't realize that the house they are buying isn't worth the price (nor is it able to be rented by anyone working in town at the price they need to get).

If the property values stay the same then it is going to collapse to the point of tent cities. If the valuses go down not only will those who just bought houses lose a lot of money...but also those who just refinanced their houses are likely going to be underwater.

Same as this, the issue is people moving in from areas with higher housing costs who can afford higher prices, while they depend on workers whose wages aren’t nearly enough to live nearby even if doubled.

This is not a new phenomenon or a much different than what has been going on in cities such as Denver. It will be interesting to see whether the pandemic changes continue to have an effect on pricing near the central business district. Remote work etc is likely to make resort towns even worse in this regard.

The free market (and voluntary association) is the only solution to this problem. And although I'm a pro-free market guy, I try to view things as what I think might be the best solution. Government intervention here won't work.

What's it take to change? A rise in foreclosures and evictions. Usually caused by economic turbulence, but in this case, just as likely caused by people buying more than they could afford. I'm seeing a -ton- of this in my home city. Houses that should be about 200k selling for 300k, and some beatup Ford Aerostar in the driveway. Feels very 2008ish.

The number of people moving here is crazy. It used to be a cozy town, but now it is LA 2.0.

Yeah they're about to expire, just like they've been about to expire for a year. I'll believe it when I see it.

"The Biden administration announced on June 24 an extension of the federal eviction moratorium issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through July 31, 2021, and that it will implement a whole-of-government approach to prevent an historic wave of evictions this summer" [0]

[0] https://nlihc.org/coronavirus-and-housing-homelessness/natio...

The real problem is that there is a lack of supply. We know this because the workforce participation rate is at record lows. Yes, employers can try to poach employees off of each other, but until the fundamental issue is resolved, which is that there is a lack of workers in the labor pool compared to any time in the last several decades, these problems will persist.

If they were perfectly rational actors, sure. But businesses and corporations aren't real, they're fake entities that exist just to shield owners from liability. The actual owners of these things are humans, with human emotions just like any other person.

What we're seeing is owners getting angry, and refusing to pay fair wages despite the fact that it makes them less profitable to be upset like this. Depending on how they choose to vent their anger, it is sometimes labeled as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_strike

> how is it that only now employees are realizing they can make more money from unemployment than working

They aren't -- employees aren't making more money from unemployment than working. They're just realizing "working" isn't really working (it costs more money to go to work, than most of these companies will pay them back in wages). You could eliminate all unemployment entirely, this situation would not change at all.

> Was it just the absurd amounts of money being pumped from stimulus checks?

No. The stimulus checks had tiny, paltry amounts of cash, and also ended months ago. Some unemployment benefits existed for longer, but they are also running out (or already have, depending on your state). Either way, the situation won't change at all when that ends, because the problem has nothing to do with outside checks.

The problem is that in many places in the US, it costs workers more money to show up to work, than they earn from doing that days work.

Why would you go punch a clock at Taco Bell, if you ended up poorer every day for working? If after a hard days work, you had less money on you than you did the day before? You wouldn't, no rational person would do this. But that's the actual reality in much of the US today, which is why a lot of people simply aren't doing these jobs anymore.

If Taco Bell pays you $14/hr, but it costs you $20/hr just to be able to show up to work at all (that's a realistic number in many cities today), then you lose $6/hr for every hour you work. You are, effectively, donating money to a for-profit corporation. Most rational folks aren't going to be happy to do that, so they aren't taking those "jobs" anymore.

Q1 2021 - 6.4% growth [0]

Q2 2021 - 7.8% growth [1]

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/188185/percent-change-fr...

[1] https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow

Never mind that they're underpaying... or that we lost half a million people in the labor force...

It may come as a surprise to people in large cities, but the vast majority of the country (geographically) was pretty much business as usual from summer 2020 onward.