Finance expert on the affordability crisis: ‘You’re not crazy — and this isn’t hopeless’

George Kamel knows what it’s like to feel buried by debt. After paying off his own debt and becoming a net-worth millionaire in less than a decade, the Ramsey Solutions personality has made it his mission to help others take control of their finances.

And with young Americans struggling in the current economy, Kamel tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey that while it may feel “hopeless” — it’s not.

“I see a lot of chatter on X about the affordability crisis and how Baby Boomers just don’t get it. They don’t get what Millennials and Gen Z are facing. What do you think the real problem is? Do you think it is more of a spending problem, the same problem that people have always had … or do you truly think that young people today have it uniquely hard?” Stuckey asks Kamel.

“Well, there’s the data part, and there’s the emotion part. And I do think that when it comes to intergenerational conversations, we’re not hearing each other. The Boomers hear complaints and they go, ‘Oh, shut up, it was hard for me too,’” Kamel responds.

“The Millennials are going, ‘I don’t think you understand what a $400,000 mortgage at 6% actually costs.’ And so there’s a math reality to it that back in the Boomer’s days, the average home was two to three times the average income, the median income,” he continues.

“And nowadays, it’s five to six times the median income. So there is a legitimate math problem here to solve this affordability crisis. And it sounds very woe is me and cynical,” he adds.

While the problem is real, Kamel points out that it may be slightly exaggerated and cheered on by the media.

“I think it’s overblown in the media because it gets a lot of clicks. And who doesn’t want to have an empathetic voice telling them that they’re not crazy, that they’re not alone,” he says.

“And so I feel like my job on the money side is to say. ‘You’re not crazy, and this isn’t hopeless,’” he adds.

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