The growing economy is helping, Gene. It's just, you know, the rising cost of housing and healthcare is hurting, at the same time.
So what's your solution, anyway? House prices are determined by the market: they're that high because that's what people are willing to pay. What are you going to do? Order them not pay that much for a house? Seize all the private real estate in the country, and have a government-run housing market?
Build a bunch of affordable housing? Okay, but that costs money, which means taxes, which means a hit to the economy. Either you tax the lower and middle classes more, which cuts into economic growth, or you tax the upper class more, which... also cuts into economic growth (after all, the more you tax the rich, the more they look for ways to keep their money out of your jurisdiction).
What about health care? How do you plan to make that cheaper? Should we scale our benefits back to what was common in 1973, instead of always insisting on the latest and greatest, the cutting edge, the newfangled quack cures? That would make health care cheaper, but suckier, too. Or should we do it the Canadian way, and make you stand in line for days, in order to get your critical care at an affordable price? The only problem with the Canadian model is that it requires higher taxes, which, again, would negatively impact your precious economy.
I propose that housing prices are going up because that's what housing prices do, and that healthcare costs are going up because we're greedy bastards fixated on the new hotness and exceedingly unsatisfied by anything less than cutting edge.
I further propose that the good economy is one of the most significant mitigating factors, that keeps the housing and healthcare trends from ruining us entirely.
