Midwesterners are frustrated with the high housing rates and cost of living under the Biden administration, stressing that their money stretched further when former President Donald Trump was in office, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Milwaukee-area residents used to consider the swing state an affordable place to live, but with costs skyrocketing under President Joe Biden, many have struggled to make ends meet, according to the WSJ. Vice President Kamala Harris may be a fresh face at the top of the ticket, but the vast majority of voters think her economic policy will be a continuation of Biden’s, according to the latest Harvard Harris poll from July 30.
“My dollar went further when Trump was president,” Dawn Horne, a 39-year-old small business owner and mom of five, told the WSJ. “I don’t know what to expect from Kamala.”
“I always thought we were a more reasonable place to live,” 24-year-old Kayla Lange told the WSJ. “It’s gotten out of control, and I blame the people in charge.”
The average cost of homes increased from an average of $371,000 in 2020 to over $500,000 in 2024, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). The average price of daily necessities like gas has also increased, costing an average of $1.88 in April of 2020 and now up to an average of $3.60 in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In the last year, the median sale prices went up 8% in Wisconsin, according to Redfin. This is the largest housing price jump across all seven battleground states and double the U.S. average, the WSJ reported.
“People are voting based on their sense of how they’re doing financially, and the degree to which they feel like they have opportunity in their lives is closely linked to their housing,” David Dworkin, president of the National Housing Conference, told the WSJ.
Although Biden has passed the torch to presumptive nominee Harris, 67% of voters think her presidency would simply be a continuation of the current administration, according to the latest Harvard/Harris poll. Only a third of voters think she will actually change direction on “taxes, inflation, immigration and energy.”
“A few years ago, it was really realistic to afford to buy something while making $50,000,” John Johnson, a Marquette University Law School research fellow told the WSJ. “Not anymore.”
“When Trump was still president, if we were making what we make now, we would be set,” 28-year-old and lifelong Democrat Nahona Moore told the outlet.
There was a shortage of four to seven million homes as of November 2023, according to an estimate from The Pew Charitable Trusts. The shortage grew by 200,000 from 2021 to 2022, according to an estimate from Zillow.
“We got frustrated with the situation and having to spend so much time and not finding what we were looking for,” 48-year-old Fernanda Speranza, who works in customer service, told the Journal. “It should not be this hard when we have two good incomes.”
The White House press office, the Biden campaign and the Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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