Opinion: Home ownership in the U.S.

Owning one’s own home is an indicator that one is well into the process of attaining the “American Dream.” At one time, home ownership was also considered to be one of the factors for entrance into the upper-middle class, the class of professional people. But that changed, especially after World War II when the G.I. Bill gave returning veterans a boost toward becoming home owners. And the success of the union movement improved the incomes of factory workers and certain service people so that a majority of Americans could call their homes their own.

Boom in industrial production

In 1890, a little under 48 percent of Americans owned their own homes. For the next three decades, that figure decline slightly each year until it hit 45.6 percent in 1920. That decline may be mostly attributed to internal migration as significant percentages of the population moved from family-owned farms to cities where industrial production provided non-farm jobs. However, urban housing costs were much higher than was the case in rural America. And apartment rentals zoomed. 

Then, during the “Roaring Twenties” home ownership rose rather steeply as factories became unionized and a new concept of factory-worker remuneration was introduced by Henry Ford. In 2015, Ford doubled factory worker pay to $5.00 per day and then later adopted the 40-hour work week. His reasoning was that if he paid his workers enough money to buy his cars, he would sell more cars and increase his profits and wealth.