No Room for Rent: Addressing Rising Rent Prices through Public Investment and Public Power by Sammi Aibinder, Lindsay Owens published by Roosevelt Institute (11/2021)
Economists are in the midst of a vigorous debate about the causes and likely duration of the uptick in inflation that we’ve seen in recent months. But while recent polling suggests that rising prices are on the minds of many Americans, the truth is that most don’t much care why prices are rising—only that they are rising at all (Morning Consult and Politico 2021). If policymakers want to alleviate the price increases facing families, they would be wise to start with the single biggest line item in household budgets: rent. Taking on our country’s enduring rental affordability crisis should be a top priority, one that will not be accomplished by contractionary monetary policy.
