Between 1980 and 2016 the share of households in the bottom quintile of the income distribution that owned their own home declined by 10 percentage points. For the same households, the share of monthly income spent on rent increased from 28% in 1960 to over 42% in 2016. To asses the extent to which income stagnation is responsible for the decline in affordability, I use Census microdata to construct counterfactual simulations that capture the evolution of housing market trends under alternative assumptions about the distribution of income. Income stagnation explains nearly the entire decline in affordability for the bottom quintile. Housing market frictions that cause the price of housing to deviate from marginal cost matter more to households further up the income distribution. Using Atkinson-type welfare-based inequality measures, I find that the counterfactual distribution of income – with inequality held constant – results in greater welfare for nearly all possible levels of inequality aversion.

从 1980 年到 2016 年，收入分配最低的五分之一家庭拥有自己的住房的家庭比例下降了 10 个百分点。对于同样的家庭，用于房租的月收入份额从 1960 年的 28% 增加到 2016 年的 42% 以上。为了评估收入停滞在多大程度上导致负担能力下降，我使用人口普查微观数据构建反事实模拟在收入分配的替代假设下捕捉住房市场趋势的演变。收入停滞几乎解释了底层五分之一人口负担能力的全部下降。导致住房价格偏离边际成本的住房市场摩擦对家庭收入分配的影响更大。使用阿特金森式基于福利的不平等措施，