Economist Richard Wolff told Hill.TV’s “Rising” Wednesday that the coronavirus pandemic could lead to a housing crash worse than the Great Depression.
“Really, you can’t equate it to anything,” Wolff said. “This is the worst crash that we have experienced, now even in comparison to the Great Depression, partly because it came so quickly and cut so deeply into our economy.”
Wolf noted that before the pandemic, which led to massive unemployment and economic decline, half of Americans were not prepared to handle an unexpected $1,000 expense.
The professor said that mass homelessness is inevitable as eviction moratoria expire and tenants who are months behind on rent are kicked out of their homes.
“Yes, an avalanche is coming,” Wolff said. “But it is also a sign of a breaking down in our normal capitalist relationships. Renters cannot pay their rent, landlords cannot pay off their debts. Everybody is gearing up to go to court… It is a tsunami in economic terms.”
Wolff said that the current economic crisis reveals how “unsustainable” the current U.S. system is.
“We’re going to have this spectacle — on top of everything else happening to us — of that American situation in which we have homeless people sitting on the curb, across the street from unoccupied apartments and homes,” he said.
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