I’m not from USA, (so only educated guess whether statistics lie), but I wager that millions could not afford homes then and millions can afford a home today.
My most minimal effort attempt at stats follows.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/184902/homeownership-rat....
> …in 2023 the proportion of households occupied by owners declined to 65.7 percent…
Also:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeownership_in_the_United_...
(Shows that it was bellow 70% in 1989)
first graph has very sharp peaks and dips, but please note that the y axis has values from 62 till 70.
Based on this I would say that it would be misleading to state “in 1980 people could afford homes and today we can’t afford”
But I can see a lot of “outrage” in US media. My unrequested speculation: more people got college and university degrees, but that did not change their ability to own a home. (But it did change their expectation, especially how pricey degrees seem to be in USA)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_th... (percentage of educated population had has risen steadily since 1950)