By KEN WYSOCKY | Fall 2020

Solving the national affordable housing crisis is pretty darn easy: Just raise the minimum wage.

Or at least that’s what the national and local media, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, would have their readers believe with their coverage of a report issued in July by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC). The coalition, as its mission statement announces, is dedicated solely to achieving socially just public policy that ensures low-income people affordable homes.

The coverage of the report, which focused almost exclusively on liberal talking points, does a disservice to readers, citizens and policymakers. With almost no challenge from other perspectives, these stories offer an absurdly simplistic solution to an extremely complicated problem, one that has defied solution for decades and that cost taxpayers $51 billion in federal housing assistance last year alone.

The media narrative conveniently ignores the many studies that show raising the minimum wage can actually hurt employment of unskilled workers.