OPINION: Fixing America’s Subsidized Homeownership
Measuring people’s happiness is now popular among many economists. Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said recently the world needs better ways to determine “economic well-being” than aggregate data like housing starts. That’s good advice for President Obama and Congress as they move to fix a broken piece of the American dream – its housing system – with new legislation.
Government support for homeownership in the United States has not only proved costly – a housing bubble, then a market crash, the Great Recession, and now a weak recovery – but it has hardly brought personal well-being.
Countries such as France, Germany, and Switzerland have rates of homeownership that are well below those in the U.S. Yet a survey known as the Better Life Index shows people in those European countries are more satisfied with their housing situation.