Central Texas ‘stuck' in middle-income affordability crisis: National Association of Realtors
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A report published May 15 by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) claims that Texas' major metros face a 'significant shortage of homes' available for middle-income families.
The NAR said that in order to meet demand, the US must build two homes that list below $260,000 for each home above $680,000. Unless that happens, 'homeownership will remain blocked for millions of Americans who are otherwise financially ready to buy,' the NAR said.
'Middle-income buyers – those who are supposed to form the backbone of the homebuying market – are making progress, but they're still shut out of more than half of the homes for sale today,' the NAR wrote.
Austin leads the nation in affordable multi-family construction, but has the 10th lowest homeownership rate.
Austin's housing market: How quickly are homes selling, and for how much?
Austin Habitat for Humanity's Chief Impact Officer Billy Whipple spoke with KXAN about the report.
'Even as homes are coming online, the asking prices are higher than a lot of our wage earners. If you look at the median incomes, they're not able to afford the product coming online,' Whipple said. 'We've experienced a lot of growth here in Austin, and with that has come a lot more homes, a lot more units. I think we've all seen the construction.'
Whipple said that while Habitat is 'stepping in' to meet demand, support from the local and state governments is necessary to help builders.
'Delivering homes affordably, where more people across our entire economic spectrum can get into home ownership, does require support, subsidy and speed,' he said. 'The longer it takes to go through zoning, permitting, construction, the more uncertainty is entered into the equation. And that always equates to more cost to deliver.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Los Angeles Times
17 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
DOGE employees can search Social Security records, Supreme Court says
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cleared the way Friday for the DOGE team that had been led by Elon Musk to examine Social Security records that include personal information on most Americans. Acting by a 6-3 vote, the justices granted an appeal from President Trump's lawyers and lifted a court order that had barred a team of DOGE employees of freely examining Social Security records. 'We conclude that, under the present circumstances,' the Social Security Administration, or SSA, 'may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work,' the court said in an unsigned order. In a second order, the justices blocked the disclosure of DOGE operations as agency records that could be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The court's three liberals — Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — dissented in both cases 'Today, the court grants 'emergency' relief that allows the Social Security Administration (SSA) to hand DOGE staffers the highly sensitive data of millions of Americans,' Jackson wrote. 'The Government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now—before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE's access is lawful.' The legal fight turned on the unusual status of the newly created Department of Governmental Efficiency. This was a not true department, but the name given to the team of aggressive outside advisors led by Musk. Were the DOGE team members presidential advisors or outsiders who should be not given access to personal data? While Social Security employees are entrusted with the records containing personal information, it was disputed whether the 11 DOGE team members could be trusted with same material. Musk had said the goal was to find evidence of fraud or misuse of government funds. He and DOGE were sued by labor unions who said the outside analysts were sifting through records with personal information which was protected by the privacy laws. Unless checked, the DOGE team could create highly personal computer profiles of every person, they said. A federal judge in Maryland agreed and issued an order restricting the work of DOGE. U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, Obama appointee, barred DOGE staffers from have accessing to the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans. But her order did not restrict the Social Security staff or DOGE employees from using data that did not identify persons or sensitive personal information. In late April, the divided 4th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to set aside the judge's order by a 9-6 vote. Judge Robert King said the 'government has sought to accord the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) immediate and unfettered access to all records of the Social Security Administration ('SSA') — records that include the highly sensitive personal information of essentially everyone in our country.' But Trump Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer appealed to the Supreme Court and said a judge should not 'second guess' how the administration manages the government. He said the district judge had 'enjoined particular agency employees — the 11 members of the Social Security Administration (SSA) DOGE team—from accessing data that other agency employees can unquestionably access, and that the SSA DOGE team will use for purposes that are unquestionably lawful. ... The Executive Branch, not district courts, sets government employees' job responsibilities.' Sauer said the DOGE team were seeking to 'modernize SSA systems and identify improper payments, for instance by reviewing swaths of records and flagging unusual payment patterns or other signs of fraud. The DOGE employees 'are subject to the same strict confidentiality standards as other SSA employees,' he said. Moreover, the plaintiffs 'make no allegation that the SSA DOGE team's access will increase the risk of public disclosure.' He said checking the personal data is crucial. 'For instance, a birth date of 1900 can be telltale evidence that an individual is probably deceased and should not still receive Social Security payments, while 15 names using the same Social Security number may also point to a problem,' he said.
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
DOGE can access sensitive Social Security records, Supreme Court rules
The Department of Government Efficiency can have unimpeded access to sensitive Social Security records for millions of people, the Supreme Court ruled Friday. The justices granted the Trump administration's emergency request to lift a lower-court order that had blocked a DOGE team assigned to the Social Security Administration from viewing or obtaining personal information in the agency's systems. The court's majority provided no detailed explanation for its ruling, but in a three-paragraph unsigned order, the majority wrote: 'We conclude that, under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work.' The three liberal justices dissented. In a 10-page dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the decision creates 'grave privacy risks for millions of Americans.' Trump administration lawyers claimed the DOGE team members needed unfettered access to Social Security's data in order to detect and halt fraudulent payments, but a federal judge in Maryland ruled that the breadth of DOGE's access violated federal law and put the data at risk of intentional or unintentional disclosure. The legal fight over DOGE's access to Social Security data is one of several that broke out in the early weeks of Trump's second term as the budget-slashing team overseen by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk fanned out across the federal government. In response to lawsuits, federal judges also limited DOGE access to sensitive databases at the Treasury and Education departments, as well as the Office of Personnel Management. Some of the restrictions have been eased over time as the Trump administration convinced the judges that adequate safeguards were in place to avoid disclosure of personal information. U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, a Baltimore-based Obama appointee, blocked DOGE's access to Social Security's databases, which include tax and wage reports as well as retirement and disability payments. In her March ruling, she concluded that the access granted to the cost-cutting team violated the Privacy Act because agency officials did not show that it was necessary to include identifying information in order to carry out the search for fraudulent payments. Justice Department lawyers defending the move offered only 'cursory, circular statements' to justify the DOGE team's access, the judge said. However, Solicitor General John Sauer told the Supreme Court that the limits Hollander imposed interfered with President Donald Trump's ability to carry out his 'critically important' agenda to eliminate wasteful spending and update archaic systems at federal agencies. 'Employees charged with modernizing government information systems and routing [sic] out fraud, waste, and abuse in data systems plainly need access to those systems,' Sauer wrote. 'District courts should not be able to wield the Privacy Act to substitute their own view of the government's 'needs' for that of the President and agency heads.' In her dissent Friday, Jackson said the government had presented 'next to nothing' to explain what harm the DOGE operation or the Social Security Administration would suffer if the limits the lower-court ordered remained in place. The Biden-appointed justice also contended that her conservative colleagues were bending the court's usual standards to allow the Trump administration to pursue its favored course of action. 'It seems as if the Court has truly lost its moorings,' Jackson wrote, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. 'The Court is … unfortunately, suggesting that what would be an extraordinary request for everyone else is nothing more than an ordinary day on the docket for this Administration.' Justice Elena Kagan also dissented from the court's order, but did not provide any explanation of her views. Among the projects DOGE staffers were working on at Social Security was one targeting improper payments to dead people. Trump has frequently falsely claimed that large numbers of deceased people receive Social Security checks, including earlier this year during a high-profile address in March to a joint session of Congress. 'One person is listed at 360 years of age … More than 100 years older than our country,' Trump said. 'But we're going to find out where that money is going, and it's not going to be pretty.' Musk also made staggering claims, suggesting in a social media post that 20 million people over 100 years of age were receiving Social Security. However, computer experts said most of the outlandishly implausible ages were the product of a default setting in the 60-year-old COBOL programming language, which interprets incomplete or missing age data as the system's oldest possible date in 1875. Musk's term as a special government employee ended last week with Trump hosting an Oval Office send-off for the tech entrepreneur. While the pair were upbeat and complimentary there, Musk's escalating attacks on Trump's budget bill currently before Congress led to a spectacular flame-out of the relationship in recent days, with Trump threatening to cut government contracts to Musk's businesses and Musk accusing Trump of delaying the release of FBI records that could be embarrassing to him.
Newsweek
23 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Supreme Court Grants DOGE Access to Social Security Systems
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The Supreme Court handed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) a win on Friday, granting them access to Social Security Administration (SSA) systems and records. Newsweek reached out to the SSA via email for comment. Why It Matters Since his January inauguration, President Donald Trump has enacted sweeping change across the federal political landscape, mainly through executive orders and implementing DOGE. The task force has been spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk in Trump's second term in the Oval Office before he left at the end of May. The Tesla CEO has pushed for DOGE to have access to numerous departments, and the process has led to numerous legal battles nationwide. What To Know In the 6-3 ruling, the Court wrote in part, "We conclude that, under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work." Justice Elena Kagan would deny the application, the ruling notes. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented with the ruling, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed with her dissent. "Today the Court grants 'emergency' relief that allows the Social Security Administration (SSA) to hand DOGE staffers the highly sensitive data of millions of Americans. The Government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now—before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE's access is lawful," Jackson wrote in part in her dissent. This is a developing story that will be updated with additional information.
