​Why does the American Dream feel increasingly unaffordable, and what would make it attainable again?

Akash Chougule, President of FREOPP, joins me to discuss their new Affording the American Dream handbook and the barriers making housing, healthcare, energy, child care, education, and other essentials more expensive.

We discuss upward mobility, housing supply, government subsidies, the federal debt, and why lasting affordability requires reducing the underlying costs rather than simply helping people pay higher prices.

The goal isn't just helping Americans afford expensive things. It's making more things affordable through greater supply, competition, innovation, and opportunity.

Learn more at VanceGinn.com and get show notes at vanceginn.substack.com.

If Washington sends you a $5,000 check while housing, healthcare, energy, taxes, and everyday necessities keep getting more expensive, are you actually better off?

That’s the question at the center of This Week’s Economy, Episode 182.

I break down the latest inflation and wage numbers and the Federal Reserve’s response, then turn to President Trump’s proposed $5,000 dividend, Governor Abbott’s Texas affordability agenda, rising healthcare costs, and the debate over slowing AI development.

These policies are different, but I keep coming back to the same questions: What caused the problem? What incentives are we creating? And does the proposed solution address the underlying problem or subsidize its symptoms?

I explain my framework for thinking through these issues: sound money and sustainable budgets, spending restraint and lasting property-tax relief, greater supply and competition, more patient control over healthcare dollars, and room for innovation.

The broader economic lesson is simple: Before government promises to make something cheaper, ask why it became expensive in the first place.
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Watch or listen to TWE 182 and find more of my work at VanceGinn.com. Subscribe to Let People Prosper for my latest economics and public-policy analysis.

What does it really mean to prosper?

In this special episode of the Let People Prosper Show, I’m joined by my wife, Emily Ginn, a licensed Master Social Worker, certified life coach, entrepreneur, and host of the IVF This podcast.

Emily and I discuss our personal journey through infertility and IVF, how that experience helped shape our family, and why she turned what she learned into a business helping other women navigate infertility.

We also explore entrepreneurship, raising three children while pursuing meaningful work, what policymakers should understand about IVF and patient choice, and why prosperity is about much more than income or economic growth.

Ultimately, human flourishing is about family, purpose, relationships, service, opportunity, and having the freedom to build a meaningful life.

Learn more about Emily and IVF This Coaching at IVFThisCoaching.com.

Subscribe for more conversations about economics, public policy, freedom, family, and human flourishing. Get show notes and more about my work at Ginn Economic Consulting at vanceginn..com.

Why do we keep trying to manage scarcity instead of creating abundance?

In TWE 179, I explain how prices, profits, losses, entrepreneurship, and competition help free people turn scarcity into opportunity.

We explore Julian Simon's famous wager, housing shortages, energy and AI, healthcare, and why economic growth means prosperity isn't a fixed pie.

Markets aren't perfect. But lasting affordability comes from producing more, not simply controlling prices.

Scarcity is natural. Abundance is created.

Get show notes at vanceginn.substack.com.

Why do policymakers keep trying to manage scarcity instead of creating abundance?

This week, I break down one of the most important lessons in economics: prices are signals. When markets are allowed to work, higher prices encourage entrepreneurs to invest, innovate, and produce more.

We apply that principle to housing shortages, energy, prescription drugs, AI infrastructure, and more—and explain why prosperity isn't a fixed pie.

Capitalism isn't perfect. But free people using prices, profits, losses, and competition have an extraordinary record of turning yesterday's luxuries into today's everyday goods. Get show notes and more at vanceginn.substack.com.

Inflation is usually discussed as a policy problem, but families experience it as a daily burden that changes how they save, spend, plan, and build their lives. It shows up at the grocery store, in rent and mortgage payments, in childcare costs, in interest rates, and in the growing feeling that even when people work hard, they are still falling behind. But inflation does more than raise prices. It changes behavior.

That is why I enjoyed this conversation with Dr. Jeffrey L. Degner, Research Fellow in Economics and Economic Freedom at the American Institute for Economic Research. Jeff is the author of Inflation and the Family, which challenges the common view that inflation is just a macroeconomic variable. His work shows how inflation reshapes household decision-making, weakens institutions, shortens time horizons, and erodes the foundations families need to plan and thrive. Before joining AIER, Jeff spent years in education, from high school to higher education, and most recently served as Dean of the School of Business at Cornerstone University. 

His research brings together economics, history, and moral philosophy to explain why sound money matters beyond markets. It matters for families.

🎧 Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
🌐 Learn more about my work at vanceginn.com
📩 Subscribe for weekly analysis at vanceginn.substack.com

Originally published at National Review. 

Washington's 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act went into law on July 11 without President Trump’s signature. The benefits of that bill are questionable, and Trump hoped to incentivize Congress to also pass the SAVE America Act, which didn’t happen. This federal housing bill gives governors and state lawmakers an opportunity to think before copying one of Congress’s worst ideas.

The newly passed bill gets some things right. It would ease some federal environmental reviews, improve manufactured-housing rules, and encourage local governments to remove other barriers that discourage building housing in Opportunity Zones and other areas. Those steps could help because America needs more homes, and we need them soon.

But Congress also targeted large institutional investors that own at least 350 single-family homes. That sounds simple. It is bad economics.

Milton Friedman often reminded people to look beyond good intentions and ask what incentives a policy creates. Restricting one group of buyers does not build a single new home. It can mean less investment, fewer rentals, slower repairs, more uncertainty, and higher prices than we would otherwise have.

Housing affordability mostly comes down to supply. When more people want homes than the market can provide, prices rise. Politicians can blame Wall Street, landlords, out-of-state buyers, or anyone else — but the real issue is still scarcity.

Government helped create that scarcity. Zoning rules limit where homes can be built. Minimum lot sizes force families to buy more land than they need. Parking mandates add costs. Permitting delays slow construction and raise financing costs. Impact fees increase home prices. Property taxes push up ownership and rental costs every year.

Blaming investors after blocking supply is like blaming umbrellas for rain. The data do not support the panic. In particular, institutional investors buy a very small share of housing. 

A recent report found that, “Institutions, defined by the proposed legislation as entities with 350+ homes in a portfolio, own ~0.7 percent of the 92 million US single-family homes and institutional investors of this size have been scaling back acquisitions — accounting for just 1 percent of all U.S. home purchases, down from a 4 percent peak in 2022.”

⁠Realtor.com likewise found institutional investors accounted for about 1 percent of national single-family home sales over the past decade, and their purchases have fallen since the 2021 peak. Most investor activity comes from smaller landlords. ⁠Realtor.com reported that investors bought 11.3 percent of homes in 2025, but mom-and-pop investors led the activity. Separately, the ⁠Mercatus Center at George Mason University found that large institutional owners have never accounted for more than 2 percent to 5 percent of purchases in any quarter.

​What’s more, even forcing every institutionally owned single-family rental into owner-occupancy would barely change the market. ⁠Brookings estimates available owner-occupied homes would rise only about 1 percent to 2 percent. That is not an affordability plan; it is a talking point.

Bad landlords exist. So do bad tenants, homeowners, builders, lenders, and politicians. Handle real misconduct with contracts, fraud laws, property standards, and local accountability. Broad ownership restrictions punish investment and reduce options.

Single-family rentals serve real families. Some households want a yard, more space, and neighborhood stability without buying right away. Others cannot qualify for a mortgage or want flexibility. Build-to-rent communities and professionally managed rentals help meet those needs.

A simple question cuts through politics: Compared with what?

If an investor cannot buy and repair a home, who fixes it? If a build-to-rent project is discouraged, where do those families live? If capital leaves because lawmakers threaten ownership limits, how does that create more homes? It does not.

Lawmakers should move the other way: Avoid special taxes on institutional owners, reject purchase caps, protect build-to-rent communities, and skip restrictive reporting rules. Real and effective reforms include legalizing more housing, shortening permitting timelines, limiting excessive fees, restraining government spending, and limiting property taxes before increasing budgets become a response to rising housing costs. States should also protect property rights when Washington tells people whom they may buy from, sell to, or rent from. Model legislation, legal challenges, and market-access protections would do better than anti-investor grandstanding.

None of this is about defending Wall Street. The issue is supply, competition, and choice. Prices send signals. High housing prices tell us homes are too scarce. Punishing buyers will not fix that.

Congress already made the investor mistake. Governors and state legislators should not make it worse. Housing needs more homes, not more scapegoats.

Americans are right to be frustrated by the rising cost of housing, healthcare, childcare, energy, and everyday necessities.

Ryan Bourne of the Cato Institute joins the Let People Prosper Show to explain how zoning, regulation, subsidies, mandates, and price controls often restrict supply and make life more expensive.

We discuss a better path based on competition, production, consumer choice, and economic freedom.

Subscribe and read the show notes at vanceginn.substack.com.

Originally published on Substack.

​Washington has a measurement problem. Politicians see prosperity and too often yell, “Government did that!” That’s like a rooster taking credit for the sunrise.
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Government matters. It should protect property rights, enforce contracts, keep the peace, and provide a stable rule of law. But too often, it gets in the way through taxes, inflation, debt, regulations, subsidies, and favoritism.

A recent Crémieux post on X comparing living standards made an important point: Americans still enjoy some of the highest material living standards in the world. Yes, but the measure deserves care.

AIC measures what people consume, whether bought directly by households or provided individually through government transfers or nonprofits, such as health care and education. It also adjusts for purchasing power, so we’re not pretending a dollar buys the same amount in Texas, Switzerland, or Japan.

Three lessons matter.

1. Measure the right thing. GDP measures production. NAHDI measures worker-supported household purchasing power. AIC measures actual consumption. For comparing living standards, AIC per person is cleaner than a technical worker-based income measure.
   
   
2. Don’t confuse the scoreboard with the game. AIC includes public services because people consume them. It does not mean government created the wealth behind them. The scoreboard records the points. It didn’t block, tackle, pass, or score.
   
   
3. Prosperity starts with production. Before government can spend, someone must earn. Before benefits can be distributed, someone must create wealth. Workers, entrepreneurs, investors, businesses, and families do that through work, saving, risk-taking, innovation, and exchange.
   
   

Government can tax wealth. It can move wealth. It can regulate wealth. But it cannot redistribute wealth that was never created.

America’s advantage is not that Washington discovered a magic formula. It’s that, despite Washington, Americans still build, invest, invent, compete, serve, and solve problems better than most others.

That advantage is not guaranteed. Inflation, excessive government spending, housing restrictions, overregulation, tariffs, corporate welfare, and dependency all weaken the productive engine. They may come wrapped in good intentions, but good intentions don’t pay the bills.

The lesson is that living standards rise when people are free to produce more, trade more, invest more, and keep more of what they earn. So let’s measure prosperity honestly. Then let’s stop pretending government is the hero of every success story.

The hero is the person getting up early, taking risks, building a business, raising a family, learning a skill, saving for tomorrow, and serving customers today. That’s how we get more opportunity, affordability, and abundance. That’s how we let people prosper.
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If you found this helpful, share it with a friend who needs better economics and fewer slogans. And leave a comment: what measure best captures prosperity?

Affordability continues to dominate the concerns of American families, and for good reason. As prices remain elevated, energy costs are squeezing household budgets, housing has become increasingly out of reach, and the value of every dollar continues to erode. But these problems didn’t appear out of nowhere; much of today’s affordability crisis is the result of years of bad policy.

In this episode of This Week’s Economy, we’ll examine why inflation remains a persistent burden, how housing shortages and overregulation continue driving up living costs, why tax and spending reforms matter for long-run affordability, and what the future of the Federal Reserve under Kevin Warsh could mean for restoring sound money and economic discipline.

Watch the full episode on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and visit my website for more information about my work at Ginn Economic Consulting at vanceginn.com and show notes at vanceginn.substack.com.