How Unemployment Is Dragging Down The Housing Market

Lila Shapiro
Huffington Post

Although the United States population has grown by 120 million people in the past fifty-odd years, today’s new homes are selling at just half the pace they were in 1963.

Home sales are being dragged down by the weakness of the labor market and the number of Americans who have grown too discouraged to look for work, economists say. In previous recoveries, the housing market has sometimes buoyed the economy, creating new jobs and driving economic growth. This time, however, the housing market is now lagging behind.

Over at Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis, a new chart helps bring employment into the housing story by comparing the ratio of annual new home sales to the size of the civilian labor force. See the chart below.