Democrats are losing the working class, one moving truck at a time
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 14, 2026 07:32
VIEWED: 418
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in_focus/4522020/democrats-losing-w
orking-class-housing/
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Quote:The article is worthless because it didn't include a price tag (which motivates almost EVERYONE and explains almost EVERYTHING in America), but I will:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in_focus/4522020/democrats-losing-w
orking-class-housing/
AI Overview
Housing in Blue California is significantly more expensive than in Red Texas, with median home prices in California often 2x to 2.7x higher than in Texas. As of 2025, California's median home price is projected to exceed $900,000, while Texas offers comparable or larger homes, often for under $400,000. (Apparently, AI is unaware that housing in Baytown, Texas, where I live, is less than $250,000) It is a trivial exercise left to you to explain why poor working-class people would move away from a high-priced housing state. By the way, apartment rent in California is also 2x to 2.7x higher than in Texas. The article writer seems completely unaware that poor working-class people do NOT usually own houses, even in Texas.
*********** The article follows ***************
Democrats are losing the working class, one moving truck at a time
By Tiana Lowe Doescher | April 9, 2026 2:11 pm
Democrats touting wealth taxes in states such as California and Washington are quick to blame tax-fleeing millionaires for escaping to Republican states. But dig into the data, and something far more dire is happening for Democratic Party prospects. The blue state refugees migrating to red America are not the comically wealthy, but the ordinary working-class and young folks who can no longer afford the Democratic degrowth agenda.
Let’s consider four new data findings separately and then find the meaning in tandem.
First, the research team at FinanceBuzz dug through the latest census data dump to conclude that while a near-record one-third of all adults younger than 35 still live with their parents, it’s not distributed equally. Whereas fewer than 1 in 5 adults younger than 35 still live with Mom and Dad in Wyoming and both Dakotas, nearly half of those do in New Jersey, Connecticut, and California.
Now let’s look at some California-specific data. A Cotality analysis found that while 7% of all homes that transferred ownership nationwide did so via inheritance last year, that figure was 18% in California and at least 20% in the counties of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and Napa. The Public Policy Institute of California used the state’s Finance Department data to discover that residents without a college degree were twice as likely to leave the state as college graduates. Over the past decade, the PPIC ascertained that the Golden State lost fewer than 2% of its higher-income adults and 1% of its college graduates but more than 10% of its lower-income population and 8% of its noncollege population.
For a final snapshot of moving patterns, let us turn to further census analysis from the Center for Christian Virtue and the Institute for Family Studies. The 2026 Family Structure Index found that since 2019, 370,000 families composed of married parents with children have moved from blue states to red states, and while fertility rates fell across the nation in that time, the 5.4% decline in red states was still less than the 7.8% decline in blue states.
The folks at the IFS and the CCV tie all these stories together for us somewhat neatly with a bow. Using a regression model to compare the influence of the home price-to-median-income ratio on a state’s fertility rate, the FSI concludes that a full 25% of a state’s fertility rate could be explained by housing affordability.
Much has been made about the looming disaster for Democrats in the next decade’s census, with a good deal of the blame deservedly going to the party’s disastrous tax-and-spend policies. The fact that 10 blue states, including the obvious candidates of California and New York, are trying to pass exit taxes to cordon in wealth as weary residents try to flee for friendlier governments indeed gives the game
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Yeah. No shit.
It costs a fortune to live in a shitty blue state.
Thanks for getting AI to confirm that for us.
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$250k for Baytown sounds pretty low to me in 2026.
You also don't live in Baytown. We won't tell everyone where you actually do live though.
Promise.
ETA: Well I'll be... you must have googled that figure beforehand. Good for you. You're learning...
Looks like it's right under $250k at $241k or so.
I wonder why it's so cheap. I don't live in a blue state shithole, and houses all around me have been going for around $300k even with the high interest rates. Outside of being in the vicinity of Chicago and the Lake that you'd sooner die than try to swim in, there is literally nothing special about being here in the middle of Dead-Trees-Half-A-Year nowhere.
I'd much rather live in Baytown.
But believe it or not, Jack doesn't make new friends very easily. Still got some roots up here and really ain't considering straying too far from this little spot on this giant rock that I've spent all of my life on outside of that one 5 day trip to the East Coast and back.
Didn't even see the ocean while I was out there. That's a shame...
Going on 50 years old and I've still got to take it on faith that there even is an ocean.
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Why are real estate prices high in Blue Massachusetts?
Not for any of the reasons from the article. I strongly suspect the article writer had a political agenda:
AI Overview
Real estate prices in Massachusetts are exceptionally high due to a chronic, severe shortage of housing inventory — a deficit of over 220,000 homes — combined with intense demand from booming tech, biotech, and education sectors. Limited land availability, strict zoning regulations, high construction costs ($350–$400+ per sq. ft.), and homeowners staying put due to high interest rates have created a supply crisis that keeps prices at record highs.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Why are real estate prices high in Blue Massachusetts?
Not for any of the reasons from the article. I strongly suspect the article writer had a political agenda:
AI Overview
Real estate prices in Massachusetts are exceptionally high due to a chronic, severe shortage of housing inventory — a deficit of over 220,000 homes — combined with intense demand from booming tech, biotech, and education sectors. Limited land availability, strict zoning regulations, high construction costs ($350–$400+ per sq. ft.), and homeowners staying put due to high interest rates have created a supply crisis that keeps prices at record highs.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
The only reason there are housing shortages in Blue states is because of Democrat policies. And we're not even going into the fact that there are housing shortages because we have over 30 Million illegals that you let in. We're just talking about how it's prohibitively expensive to build a house anywhere in Blue shitholes. Everybody knows this, including Ezra freakin' Klien, so don't bother disputing this fact. Nobody wants to hear shit out of you.
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The 'affordability economy' has created a housing market nobody predicted: Prices collapsing in the Sun Belt, soaring in the Rust Belt
by Shawn Tully | April 11, 2026
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/the-affordability-economy-h
as-created-a-housing-market-nobody-predicted-prices-collapsing-in-the-sun-belt-soaring-in-the-rust-belt/ar-AA20DpSr
U.S. housing is experiencing a historic “reversion to the mean.” In other words, the formerly sizzling metros have gone cold, and the unsexy plodders are back in vogue. That point comes through vividly in the new market snapshot just released by the highly influential American Enterprise Institute Housing Center. The AEI data, compiled by co-directors Ed Pinto and Tobias Peter, shows that housing prices nationwide edged up a puny 1.1% in the twelve months ended in February, the slowest rate of appreciation since the AEI started collecting numbers at the start of 2012. (The think tank started reporting the year-over-year changes in 2013.) It gets worse: The AEI is projecting that for the first three weeks of April, the trend will go negative, and by the end of this year, single family houses on average will be fetching 1% less than at the start of 2026, with drops of 2.0% to come in both 2027 and 2028. Obviously, those numbers are trailing the current course of the CPI, so the the lesser dollars you’d get selling your house in 2028 would take a second hit from today’s high inflation.
Those startling stats mark a stunning reversal from the post-pandemic boom. From 2013 to early 2020, home price appreciation (HPA) consistently registered at between 5% and 7%. Then, the Fed supplied the rocket fuel by slashing interest rates, sending mortgage costs plummeting from around 4.6% in late 2018 to 2.6% at the start of 2021. Prices took a moonshot as buyers could pay much more for the house and still comfortably make the monthly payment due to the bargain home loans. By early 2022, HPA was roaring at an annual tempo of roughly 18%, triple the pre-pandemic number.
The bounty flowed mostly to the Sun Belt and a suite of glamorous western cities, notably Denver, Seattle, Portland and Boise. Florida, Texas and California led the way. According to the AEI figures, from Q4 of 2019 to Q2 of 2022 when the upswing peaked, Las Vegas average prices went from $308,000 to $448,000 (+45%), Miami from $350,000 to $450,000 (+50%), Phoenix from $293,000 to $470,000 (+60%), Dallas $264,000 to $432,000 (+64%), and Austin from $297,000 to $593,000 (+100%). By comparison, the Rust Belt, and the Midwest overall, lagged behind, after already trailing at a far slower pace in the pre-pandemic days. In that fabulous span for the sprinters of the south and west, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Louisville, St. Louis and Kansas City each gained only between 25% and 33%.
From Cape Coral to Kansas City, America’s housing market is undergoing a historic reversion to the mean—and the data couldn’t be more striking.
The AEI report features tables displaying the five metros that have registered the highest HPA from February of 2025 to February of 2026, and the cities that have fared worst. You could almost cut and paste the “best” performers from February of 2022 into the current “worst” column, and vice versa. Topping the laggards: Cape Coral, Fla. at a 9.6% drop, followed by North Port, Fla., Memphis, Tucson, and Palm Bay, Fla., all between -3.8% to -6.1%. The biggest winner was Kansas City at +8.6%; Pittsburgh (+5.8%) and Cleveland (+5.9%) also made the top five.
All told, 28 out of America’s 53 largest metros saw price decreases through February, including all in Florida, California and Texas. The entire Rust Belt as a bloc made the plus column as Louisville rose 3.4%, Grand Rapids 5.1% and Milwaukee 5.6%. Stalwarts such as Chicago and Philadelphia (each +4%) that never got pricey to begin with are now reaping the benefits of being shunned in the pre-pandemic world.
The report notes that a big increase in supply is pummeling the south and west. Forty-three of the 53 cities are carrying ove
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That's not an argument against any of my points, boy.
That's just a story about how millions of people are leaving blue states, wrapped up in a pretty bow so stupid people like you don't catch the real meaning.
Why Are Americans Fleeing Blue States for Red States?
https://www.heritage.org/markets-and-finance/commentary/why-are-americ
ans-fleeing-blue-states-red-states
Quote:
From July 2024 to July 2025 (the latest numbers available), blue states like California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts hemorrhaged their most valuable resource—people—at an alarming rate.
These were the five worst states for net domestic migration, meaning more people left those states than moved in, for a combined net loss of 477,000 in just 12 months. Since 2020, these five deep-blue states have cumulative net losses reaching almost 3.7 million people in total. That’s a lot of one-way U-Hauls.
By contrast, the top-five destination states from July 2024 to July 2025 were North Carolina, Texas, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Arizona—all red. The Census Bureau numbers clearly show people are fleeing blue states for red states, and that’s been the pattern for years, including the entire decade before 2020.
You can deny it all you want, until the next Census numbers come in. Hopefully, by an emergency Census that is done before the next Presidential election. Especially after SCOTUS removes non-citizens from the Census for both state representation and federal funding purposes.
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Here's Vox begrudgingly agreeing with me too...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/general/how-austin-s-stunning-drop-in-
rents-explains-housing-in-america/ar-AA20zRWq
The only problem we may have now, is overbuilding.
Once we get rid of all the illegals, there are going to be a lot of vacant houses and apartment units if we're building too many in and around large cities. Especially in cities that are still half ghost towns since Covid (like Chicago).
House and rent prices are going to end up falling pretty hard eventually because of this if there aren't forward thinkers in charge of what's being developed and where.
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Quote:The White House says that there is a shortage of 10,000,000 houses. So, either the White House is wrong, or else you are grotesquely wrong, about housing. To be plain: house prices have to fall by at least 50% to make California affordable for the working class who don't already own a house. The working class who already own a house will be enraged and bitter if house prices fall.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
The only problem we may have now, is overbuilding.
Once we get rid of all the illegals, there are going to be a lot of vacant houses and apartment units if we're building too many in and around large cities. Especially in cities that are still half ghost towns since Covid (like Chicago).
House and rent prices are going to end up falling pretty hard eventually because of this if there aren't forward thinkers in charge of what's being developed and where.
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US faces 10 million home shortage: What it means for buyers, prices
Apr 13, 2026 at 01:51 PM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/us-home-shortage-what-it-means-buyers-prices-
white-house-11821723
The U.S. has a shortage of 10 million homes, White House economists estimated in a new report released on Monday, which says that current trends "have pushed the dream of homeownership further out of reach."
Why Is the US Short About 10 Million Homes?
The report, put together by staff at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, finds there would be 10 million more houses in the country if “homebuilding and the growth of the single-family housing stock had continued at their historical pace instead of falling dramatically” after the 2008 financial crisis.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/ERP-2026-6.-Prot
ecting-and-Rebuilding-the-American-Dream-of-Homeownership.pdf
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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