How historic housing unaffordability—and resurgent tenant organizing—are reshaping the midterm elections.
In 2023, more than 30 economists signed a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, backing tenant organizers’ call to attach rent caps to federal financing. “At its core, rent regulations are aimed at rebalancing the power dynamics between tenants and landlords, which disproportionately favor landlords,” the letter read.
Neoclassical economists have been nearly unanimous in their rejection of rent control. But the signatories also argued that the debate over rent regulation is reaching the same inflection point as the one surrounding the minimum wage in the 1990s, when a series of empirical studies concluded that wage hikes were not leading to job losses, as both mainstream economists and business lobbies had predicted they would.
In July, Mark Paul, an associate professor at Rutgers University and one of the letter’s signatories, proposed a framework for national rent control that would limit annual increases to 3% or three-quarters of the local Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower — and apply those limits to all rental housing nationwide, including single-family homes and manufactured housing.
Paul also proposed establishing regional boards to enforce the policy and assess whether additional increases are needed to maintain housing quality.