Adumbration

Heidi Groover at The Stranger lays in to what looks like increasingly expensive real estate in Seattle ("To afford a one-bedroom apartment in Seattle ..."), sourced largely from a new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, making the unsurprising assessment that increasing rents and housing costs in the Seattle area mean one must either earn more or devote more of one's earnings into housing.

Synchronously, I find this column linked from DBx at Cafe Hayek - Kevin Williamson at National Review, referring to the same NLIHC report, making a reasonable comparison to the priorities we make in other parts of our lives, dealing with unlimited ends and limited resources:

All of these so-called studies — they are not really “studies” in the true sense of the word — suffer from the same error: comparing a low wage to an average rent. ... The median cost of a new car in the United States is about $34,000, which is well out of reach for most minimum-wage earners. You know how minimum-wage earners get around that problem? They buy cars that cost a heck of a lot less than the median — or they buy used cars, share cars, take the bus, etc. Minimum-wage workers solve the problem of relatively high rents by choosing accommodations that are well under the 50th or 40th percentile — or by having roommates, living with their families, etc. The relationship between the minimum wage and the median or near-median rent is an entirely artificial problem cooked up by organizations that want more federal spending on low-income housing (NLIHA) or by politicians arguing for a higher minimum wage. The latter is especially popular during campaign season.