How Come the President Never Talks About My Rent?

Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

It's a sign that the housing market is largely mended that Barack Obama barely mentioned homeownership in his penultimate State of the Union address Tuesday night, as he did at least 16 times in his previous six State of the Unions. The president did take the opportunity to tell the story of a couple from Minnesota who struggled through the recession and succeeded, finally, in buying their first home.

Here’s one thing he didn’t mention at all: the rent.

The omission isn’t surprising. Obama has mentioned rents only once in his previous six addresses, and then, in 2013, only obliquely.

But it comes as renters are getting squeezed. Rent is rising faster than wages in the country's 25 biggest metropolitan areas, according to a July analysis by Trulia chief economist Jed Kolko. The share of Americans who live in rental housing is at its highest point in nearly 20 years. The homeownership rate was 64.4 percent in the third quarter of last year, the lowest since 1995, according to the Census Bureau.

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