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The Palm Beach Post has an article on a potential housing squeeze as Florida housing prices 24.5% over the last 12 months that ended June 30th, while income rose only 5.4%. While we all love housing appreciation, when it causes a displacement of workers it can be troublesome. Low income workers are a necessity to the tourism industry as they are the tools that keep industry humming. When they can not afford to work and live in the area they work, costs rise and employment issues arise.

 Via the Palm Beach Post:

Palm Beach County’s median home price in the second quarter was $385,804, fully 7.5 times the county’s median wage of $51,400. That home price-to-income ratio ranks well above the state and national averages and above historic levels, leading many experts to warn that cooling housing prices are inevitable.

“In the long run, there’s been a fundamental relationship between these two things,” Phelps said.

The FDIC is just the latest group to point out the side effects of a housing boom that has shut out many low-wage workers and has forced many middle-income earners into long commutes.

The National Housing Conference has raised similar issues, and employers increasingly say it’s difficult to recruit workers here from other parts of the country.

“We’re heading into a crisis,” said Bruce Nissen, director of research at Florida International University’s Center for Labor Research and Studies. “It’s got to be a critical question for public policy.”

Officials from Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council plan to discuss the housing crunch at separate events in coming weeks, but public officials acknowledge that there are no easy fixes.

Incentive to provide low income housing in the region is the way to combat this. The government will have a tax surplus as the property value increase turns into additional tax revenue. They should make it a priority to enhance the tax abatement on low income housing to manage the income ratios of the community.

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