International | Control yourself!

Is your rent ever going to fall?

Too often politicians tout awful solutions for helping tenants

An illustration of a house being rolled up and squeezed from one end with coins and notes flying out of the door, which is coming off its hinges.
Illustration: Rob en Robin
|Stockholm

An entire generation of tenants is tearing its hair out. Across the rich world—from America to New Zealand—millions spend more than a third of their disposable income on rent. The squeeze extends from social democracies that prize strong tenancy rights to Anglophone countries that prefer homeownership—and it is mostly getting worse. The good news for anxious renters is that they are gaining a louder voice as their numbers swell. The bad news is that campaigners and politicians mostly focus on the wrong kinds of solutions to their woes.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “How to survive the big squeeze”

From the June 1st 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from International

A helicopter flies above Houthi forces boarding the cargo ship Galaxy Leader.

Inside the Houthis’ moneymaking machine

After a ceasefire in Gaza, they may continue their Red Sea racket

An illustration of a side profile portrait of Xi Jinping with his eyes on a globe showing South America.

Marco Rubio will find China is hard to beat in Latin America

China buys lithium, copper and bull semen, and doesn’t export its ideology


An illustration of Donald Trump pushing down on a lever with one foot, attempting to lift the globe on the other side.

Donald Trump has a strong foreign-policy hand, but could blow it

Bullying foreigners can be sadly effective, but also a dangerous distraction


Women warriors and the war on woke

Trump’s Pentagon pick wants women off the battlefield

Young people are having less fun

Youthful excess continues to decline

Why people over the age of 55 are the new problem generation

Baby-boomers are keeping their bad habits into retirement