A decade-long review of federal housing spending found that states receiving more HUD money did not experience measurably better housing affordability, as home prices outpaced income growth in every state despite $460 billion spent through 18 major programs.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The federal government poured approximately $460 billion into 18 major housing and homelessness programs over a decade, but states receiving more of that money were no more successful at keeping home prices aligned with household incomes, according to a new analysis of federal and state-level data.
The Open the Books review compared housing-price growth, income growth and federal housing expenditures across all 50 states from 2015 through 2024.
Its central finding was striking: Home prices increased faster than household incomes in every state, and higher levels of Department of Housing and Urban Development spending showed no measurable relationship with smaller affordability gaps.
The analysis does not conclude that HUD programs caused housing prices to increase.
Instead, it raises a different question about whether hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending designed in part to support affordable and low-income housing have produced measurable improvements in the broader affordability problem confronting prospective homeowners.
Open the Books defined each state’s “affordability gap” as the difference between the percentage increase in average home prices and the percentage increase in household income during the decade.
By that measure, Idaho experienced the largest gap.
Household income in Idaho increased approximately 68% between 2015 and 2024, while home prices climbed 151%.
That means housing costs rose more than twice as quickly as household income despite Idaho recording substantial income growth of its own.
Florida, Nevada and Tennessee were also among the states with the largest affordability gaps.
Each experienced significant population inflows during and following the COVID-19 pandemic, illustrating how migration and rapidly growing housing demand can affect prices independently of federal housing expenditures.
The problem was not confined to those fast-growing states.
Housing prices rose faster than incomes in all 50 states during the period examined.
In 14 states, home prices increased at least twice as rapidly as household income.
Those disparities have made the traditional path to homeownership increasingly difficult because prospective buyers must accumulate down payments on homes whose prices have been appreciating faster than their earnings.
The effect becomes especially pronounced when examining a conventional 20% down payment.
Open the Books calculated how long a household earning the median income would need to save for such a down payment if it could set aside 10% of its pretax income every year.
In Maine, the estimated saving period reached roughly 25 years.
Even Alaska, which had the most affordable down-payment calculation in the analysis, required approximately nine years of saving under the same assumptions.
The numbers demonstrate how rapidly appreciating home values can move the initial cost of homeownership further away even when wages themselves are increasing.
The analysis then compared those affordability trends with federal housing subsidies.
HUD spent roughly $460 billion through the 18 largest programs examined during the decade.
If greater federal spending were closely associated with improved statewide affordability, states receiving substantially larger subsidies might be expected to show smaller gaps between housing-price and income growth.
Open the Books said the data showed no such pattern.
Massachusetts provides one of the clearest examples.
The state received nearly $4,000 in federal housing subsidies per resident in 2024, yet its affordability gap was almost indistinguishable from states receiving approximately $500 per resident.
Neither gross HUD spending nor the amount spent on a per-person basis showed that states receiving more federal support had been more successful in preventing home prices from rapidly outpacing incomes.
The pattern also crossed political and geographic lines.
Open the Books found no measurable distinction between Republican-leaning and Democratic-leaning states.
Large states did not consistently perform better or worse than small ones.
High federal expenditures likewise did not reliably correspond with improved affordability.
Those findings suggest that the housing problem cannot be easily explained by partisan control, state population or the amount of money Washington directs toward housing programs.
Instead, housing prices are shaped by numerous overlapping economic and regulatory forces.
Supply is among the most important.
Where housing construction fails to keep pace with population growth and demand, buyers and renters compete for a limited number of available units, putting upward pressure on prices.
Local zoning laws can restrict where housing may be built and how densely property can be developed.
Lengthy permitting procedures can delay projects and increase financing and construction costs.
Government fees and regulatory requirements can further increase the expense of bringing new homes to market.
Restrictions on land use can reduce the amount of housing developers are permitted to construct even when demand is rising.
Those factors can have major effects on supply without necessarily being resolved by increasing federal subsidies.
Migration can create additional pressure.
States including Idaho, Florida, Nevada and Tennessee attracted large numbers of new residents during the pandemic period.
When population and demand rise faster than construction, home values can increase rapidly even in states where incomes are also rising.
Open the Books therefore cautioned against interpreting its findings as evidence that HUD expenditures themselves drove housing inflation.
The analysis establishes correlation — or, more precisely, the lack of a meaningful relationship between higher federal spending and narrower affordability gaps — rather than proving what caused home prices to rise.
That distinction is important.
Federal housing programs serve numerous purposes beyond attempting to reduce the average market price of a home.
Some provide rental assistance or housing for low-income households. Others address homelessness or subsidize specific affordable-housing projects.
A program could potentially assist individual recipients without reducing statewide home-price growth.
The Open the Books findings instead focus on a broader policy question: whether vastly different levels of federal housing assistance among states were associated with meaningfully different affordability outcomes.
According to the review, they were not.
That raises questions about how lawmakers evaluate programs before increasing their funding.
Rather than assuming additional appropriations will improve affordability, policymakers could require clearer evidence that existing initiatives are achieving their stated objectives and examine regulatory barriers that federal spending alone may not address.
California provides a separate example of the difficulties governments can face in determining whether large expenditures are producing results.
The state spent $24 billion over five years addressing homelessness, yet officials lacked sufficiently accurate and comprehensive information to determine the effectiveness of much of that spending.
The problem was not simply the amount appropriated.
Without consistent outcome data, government officials and taxpayers were left with limited ability to determine which programs worked, which failed and which should receive additional money.
The example illustrates a broader distinction between measuring government activity and measuring government results.
Appropriations can establish how much money was spent.
They do not automatically establish how many housing units were added, how much rents or purchase prices were reduced, how many people achieved long-term housing stability or whether a program represented the most effective use of taxpayer funds.
That distinction becomes increasingly consequential as housing becomes less attainable relative to income.
A household may earn substantially more than it did a decade ago and still find itself further away from homeownership if housing prices increased at twice the rate of wages.
The Idaho figures illustrate that dynamic particularly clearly.
Income growth of 68% would ordinarily represent a significant increase in household earnings.
But when home prices rise 151% during the same period, the purchasing power of those earnings in the housing market deteriorates.
The same underlying problem appeared to varying degrees nationwide.
Every state recorded faster home-price growth than income growth from 2015 through 2024, according to the review.
For prospective buyers, that widening difference affects more than monthly mortgage payments.
It increases the amount of cash required upfront, makes saving for a down payment take longer and can push homeownership further into the future even for households whose incomes are steadily rising.
For government, the findings pose a different challenge.
If dramatically different levels of federal housing expenditures are not associated with dramatically different affordability outcomes, policymakers may need to examine more closely the structural forces restricting housing supply and increasing construction costs.
Those can include zoning, permitting requirements, fees, regulatory expenses and other restrictions that determine how quickly and inexpensively new housing can be created.
The analysis does not establish that eliminating any one of those barriers would solve the affordability problem.
Nor does it demonstrate that HUD’s 18 programs provided no benefits to the individuals and communities they served.
What it does show is that spending more federal money was not associated with states doing a better job of keeping home-price growth close to income growth during the decade examined.
After approximately $460 billion in federal expenditures, housing became less affordable relative to income in every state.
That leaves lawmakers with a basic accountability question as they consider additional housing subsidies: whether expanding existing programs should come before determining which policies have actually made housing more attainable.
For taxpayers and aspiring homeowners alike, the amount spent is only one measure.
The more consequential measure is whether the spending produces results — and whether Americans are ultimately any closer to being able to afford a home.
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