[rhino369]

I assume the housing market is the majority of this wealth disparity. The nations northern cities have seen huge increases in property values. For those who bought cheaply before the run up, the benefits are clear. You buy a house for 150k in Palo Alto, CA in 1981. And in 2015 it's worth 1.5 mil.

For millenials, we are stuck in a market where you got to pony up 1.5 mil to buy a family sized house.

Maybe the market will just keep going and going. But I don't think our economy can support that sort of thing. At least not the extremes that happened since the 70s.

[jtzhou]

And the person who bought the home in Palo Alto in 1981 is only paying 1/5 of the property taxes as the person in a comparable home who bought recently. California is really the epitome of having a tax code favoring land owners and the older generation over those relatively new to the job market.