Markus Andrews

The advisory group known as the Department of Government Efficiency is seeking to make massive cuts to federal spending under billionaire Elon Musk.
A group of lawmakers and advocates held a rally outside the Social Security Administration’s Maryland headquarters in an effort to protect the agency.
“Keep your hands off our Social Security, because this has nothing, nothing to do with government efficiency,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said at the rally.

Richard Stephen | Istock | Getty Images

The advisory group known as the Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has moved quickly to curb government spending at federal agencies including the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
At a rally Monday outside the Social Security Administration’s Maryland headquarters, lawmakers and advocates warned that the federal agency responsible for benefits for 72.5 million Americans could be among DOGE’s next targets.

“Keep your hands off our Social Security, because this has nothing, nothing to do with government efficiency,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said at the rally.
DOGE has launched plans to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development and has told staffers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop work until further notice.
The next target may be the Department of Education, Van Hollen said, followed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and then the Social Security Administration.
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Social Security is one of the “most important social programs of our lifetime,” with Americans working for years to qualify for benefits, said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md.

“It is America’s promise to us when we paid into Social Security,” Alsobrooks said. “And yet this is under attack even today.”
During his campaign, President Donald Trump repeatedly promised that he would not touch Social Security benefits. He reiterated that promise last week, according to reports, while also alleging that illegal immigrants are committing benefit fraud.
“The president remains committed to his promise not to touch [Social Security],” while also doubling down on his promise to end taxation of benefits, a White House official said in an emailed statement to CNBC. “Any work from DOGE is to find fraud, which they’ve successfully done,” the official wrote, without providing evidence of any fraud.

Massive budget cuts make Social Security a target

Because DOGE has been tasked with executing massive spending cuts, experts say it will be difficult to avoid Social Security.
“When you’re tasked with cutting $2 trillion and 70% of the federal budget is comprised of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Defense, then you know that they’re going to continue to go after this,” said Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., during a Sunday town hall with constituents.  “We’re going to resist them.”
Lawmakers in red states may also push back, given how their constituents may negatively react to any changes, Larson said.
The Social Security Administration has “historically struggled to provide essential services in a timely manner,” a group of Democratic senators recently said in a letter to the Office of Personnel Management, with long waits to reach the agency by phone and for determinations on disability benefits.

According to the latest projections from the Social Security Trustees, the trust fund used to pay retirement benefits is projected to be depleted around 2033 if no legislative action is taken to address the issue. If Congress doesn’t act by 2033, the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing program income will be sufficient to pay 79% of scheduled benefits.
Any attempts by the Trump administration to make changes may be met with litigation.
A federal judge has temporarily stopped Musk and other DOGE team members from accessing Treasury Department systems and data, which had prompted worries that sensitive information involving Social Security numbers and tax information may be compromised. The Trump administration has filed a motion to vacate a restraining order prohibiting DOGE access to Treasury payment systems. Musk has called for the judge in that case to be impeached.

New moves ‘put people’s data at risk,’ expert says

While DOGE has access to the Treasury Department system, the concern is they may also have access to Social Security Administration data including Social Security numbers, direct deposit accounts and personal addresses, said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former Social Security Administration employee.
In a statement to members of Congress last week, the Treasury Department sought to reassure lawmakers that DOGE will have “read-only” access to data.
“Treasury is committed to safeguarding the integrity and security of the system, given the implications of any compromise or disruption to the U.S. economy,” a Treasury official wrote in a letter to members of Congress. “The Fiscal Service is confident those protections are robust and effective.” 
The White House did not respond to CNBC’s request for further comment.
Nevertheless, Romig said there is the potential for new processes to put people’s data at risk “in major and very scary ways.”
“SSA has never had a data breach, and that’s because they have it so incredibly secure,” Romig said.
But with reports of DOGE using external servers and temporary employees without security clearances, that could put that sensitive information at risk, she said.
Other prospective budget cuts could also negatively impact Social Security, Romig said.
For example, if DOGE’s plans to cut federal leases impact the agency, that may leave Social Security beneficiaries without access to field offices, she said. Moreover, efforts to cut federal employees may hurt the agency as it already faces staffing issues. More

In a letter sent Monday to Inspector General Jennifer Fain and shared exclusively with CNBC, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said the FDIC should evaluate whether the decision to rescind more than 200 job offers to bank examiners threatens the stability of the banking system.
The FDIC is already severely understaffed, the letter said.
“The FDIC should explain why it’s now axing even more examiners whose job it is to make sure big banks don’t crash our economy,” Warren also said in a post on X.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is urging the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to reevaluate the decision to rescind more than 200 job offers to bank examiners in the wake of President Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze.
The FDIC is already severely understaffed, which “threatens the stability of the banking system,” Warren, D-Mass., explained in a letter sent Monday to Inspector General Jennifer Fain and shared exclusively with CNBC.

In the letter, also signed by Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del, the senators said staffing shortages directly contributed to Signature Bank’s failure in March 2023.
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The lack of examiners “led to a series of supervisory delays, canceled or postponed exams, and quality control issues in the supervision of Signature,” the letter said.
“The lesson learned in this case was that a shortage of cops on the beat can threaten the safety and soundness of the banking system and pose risks to the Deposit Insurance Fund,” the letter stated.
The incident marked the largest U.S. banking failures since the 2008 financial crisis, and one of the biggest bank failures in U.S. history. The unexpected shutdown also caused widespread concern among consumers about their deposits, their bank and the banking system.

In a Jan. 27 post on X,  Warren also said: “the FDIC should explain why it’s now axing even more examiners whose job it is to make sure big banks don’t crash our economy.”
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McDonald’s and Charles Schwab have been outperforming the market this year, but now may be the time for investors to sell the stocks, according to James Demmert, chief investment officer of Main Street Research. 
Demmert appeared on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” on Monday to share his opinions on where he thinks some of the biggest stocks in the market are headed. Here are his thoughts on the two stocks to sell, as well as one name he encourages traders to buy. 
McDonald’s 

Although shares of McDonald’s jumped 5% Monday following its fourth-quarter results, the move higher belies the weakness in the earnings report, Demmert said. Although earnings came in line with consensus estimates, revenue was weaker than expected due to a large drop in same-store sales. 
“Those golden arches look good on the market today, but the report was awful. They missed what was already a low bar,” said the investor. 
The stock’s climb higher on Monday is the perfect opportunity for investors to sell on the strength, Demmert added. The stock is already trading at 23 times earnings, with limited further upside potential in a very competitive market, he added. 
“There’s many more modern brands in fast, or ‘faster’ food, such as Cava,” Demmert said. 
McDonald’s has logged a nearly 7% gain year to date and over the past 12 months

Charles Schwab

Broker Charles Schwab is another name investors should look to leave, according to Demmert. 
The stock fell more than 2% Monday after TD Bank Group announced it would sell all of its $1.5 billion in shares in the company, representing a 10.1% stake. 
“You don’t want to wake up as a public shareholder or company and find out that your largest stakeholder is selling shares. That’s really some overhang on the stock,” Demmert said. 
Although Schwab has announced it would buy back the stock, Demmert expects it to remain a headwind that will limit the stock’s ability to rise despite a strong growth rate. 
“With this overhang of one of the largest shareholders selling, I think it’s going to put some brakes on the stock’s ability to go to higher,” said Demmert. “I think this is a stock that — yes, maybe buy it cheaper — but here we’d be a seller.”
Shares have advanced almost 10% year to date. Over the past 12 months, the stock has gained more than 28%.
SAP 
The European market offers opportunities at compelling valuations, Demmert said, offering software company SAP as one example.
The investor described SAP as a way to play the artificial intelligence trend. It is “a great example of second derivative AI in this early part of [the] AI tech-led bull market,” he explained.
It’s “sort-of like — if you will — larger than Oracle, or maybe a Salesforce, and has a platform similar to ServiceNow,” he added.
Profits have jumped more than 28% over the past year, and the company recently reported a top- and bottom-line beat.
SAP is also “a great way to play a foreign stock that we think will be spared by Trump tariffs,” Demmert added. More

President Donald Trump told reporters Sunday that he will impose 25% duties on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S.
U.S. Steel, Cleveland-Cliffs, Nucor and Alcoa surged.
The U.S. relies on imports for more than 80% of its aluminum needs, according to a note from JPMorgan.

A water tower at the U.S. Steel Corp. Edgar Thomson Works steel mill in Braddock, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 4, 2024.
Justin Merriman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Steel and aluminum stocks surged Monday after President Donald Trump said he will impose 25% duties on all imports of the metals into the U.S.
Cleveland-Cliffs rallied nearly 18%, Nucor jumped more than 5%, Alcoa rose more than 4% and U.S. Steel gained nearly 5%.

“Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25% tariff,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday. The president said he will also slap 25% tariffs on aluminum imports.
The U.S. relies on imports for more than 80% of its aluminum needs, according to a note from JPMorgan. Canada supplies about 70% of raw aluminum to the U.S., according to the investment bank.
The aluminum tariff would add nearly 30 cents per pound to prices, not including transportation and other costs, according to JPMorgan. The bank expects domestic production of aluminum to increase as a result of the tariffs.
“Although existing stockpiles may provide a short-term buffer, the medium-term outlook suggests a modestly bearish impact on aluminum prices, due to potential declines in U.S. demand and a possible increase in domestic supply,” JPMorgan analysts led by Dominic O’Kane told clients.

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Bird flu outbreak has pushed the price of eggs even higher.
Wholesale egg prices have eclipsed record highs. Retail prices may also push past their 2023 record.
Chicken meat prices haven’t risen as dramatically, at least for now.

Sign on an empty supermarket shelf in Queens, New York.
Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Wholesale egg prices have eclipsed record levels as the U.S. scrambles to contain a bird-flu outbreak — and consumers may soon see more sticker shock at their local grocer as a result, according to analysts.
On Friday, average wholesale prices for large, white shell eggs reached $8 a dozen, beating the previous record by a large degree, according to data from Expana, which tracks agricultural commodity prices.

“The previous all-time high was late December 2022 heading into Christmas, when we touched $5.46 per dozen,” Ryan Hojnowski, a market reporter at Expana, wrote in an e-mail. “Of course we have blown way past that this time.”
There’s a lag by a few weeks before those wholesale price hikes show up in retail stores, Hojnowski explained. How closely retail price dynamics track those of wholesale prices will vary by grocer, he said.

Bird flu drives egg supply shortage, economists say

JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images

At a time when U.S. inflation has eased broadly, egg inflation has caused anxiety for consumers.
Retailers like Trader Joe’s and CostCo have imposed some limits on consumers’ egg purchases due to higher prices.
What’s more, the Waffle House restaurant chain began charging customers an extra 50 cents per egg for each order. It’s not the only restaurant to do so. Some local restaurants have also increased the cost of egg dishes for customers, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, which cited examples like like Storm’s Drive-In in Texas and Kroll’s Diner in Fargo, North Dakota.

Consumers paid about $4.15 for a dozen large, grade A eggs, on average, at the retail level in December, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
While shy of the record retail high of $4.82 per dozen in January 2023, retail prices are up 65% from about $2.51 in December 2023 — and price pressures don’t appear to be easing.

“Highly pathogenic avian influenza,” more commonly known as bird flu, is the primary driver of egg price inflation, experts said.
The disease — highly infectious and lethal among birds — has killed millions of chickens at commercial egg farms and reduced egg supply, experts said. To prevent spread, farmers must kill their entire flock if they detect a case.
More than 40 million egg-laying chickens died in 2024, about 13% of the national total, said Amy Smith, vice president of Advanced Economic Solutions, an economic consulting firm specializing in agricultural commodities.
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Consequently, inventories of shell eggs are roughly 15% to 16% below the five-year average, said Smith, citing U.S. Department of Agriculture data. (There’s currently about 1.2 million cases of 30-dozen eggs in shell-egg inventory, according to USDA data.)
Most of the egg-laying chickens — nearly 22 million — died in the fourth quarter of 2024 alone, creating a supply shock that ran headlong into peak seasonal demand around the winter holidays, when more households buy eggs for baking recipes, for example, Smith said.
Wholesale prices “are triple, quadruple where we were a year ago,” Smith said. The runup is “very significant,” she said.

How wholesale prices may impact consumers

Depending on the grocer, consumers may not see price flare-ups trickle down to store shelves quite as dramatically.
“Large national retailers like Walmart and Aldi often have more flexibility to absorb wholesale price increases,” Hojnowski wrote.
They may be able to offset those higher wholesale costs through stronger margins on other food products, or by securing some of their egg supply on fixed-price contracts, which many do, he said.
However, smaller, independent retailers don’t have the same economies of scale and need to maintain profitability on each item they sell, “leading them to adjust prices more quickly in response to wholesale changes,” Hojnowski said.

Why chicken has been less impacted than eggs

Bird flu has plagued egg farms into 2025, too, meaning supply may continue to be impacted, experts said. More than 22 million egg-laying chickens at commercial farms have died of bird flu so far in 2025, according to USDA data.
Bird flu doesn’t seem to have had as large an impact on farms that raise chickens for meat instead of eggs — at least not yet.

Average retail egg prices increased about 170% from December 2019 to December 2024, according to BLS data. By comparison, the average retail price for one pound of fresh, whole chicken rose about 42% during that time. A pound of boneless chicken breast meat jumped about 32%.
All increase more than average U.S. inflation overall during that time, as measured by the consumer price index, which increased about 23%.
That’s largely because of how bird flu has impacted different types of chickens, experts said. Chickens raised for eggs are different from those raised for chicken meat, which are known as “broilers.”

About 7.5 million broilers have died from bird flu since October, when the latest disease outbreak began, said Matt Busardo, team lead of U.S. poultry reporting at Expana. By contrast, more than 20 million egg layers have have died since the beginning of 2025.
“This alone provides a clearer picture of why egg prices have risen so dramatically compared to chicken,” Busardo said.
Wholesale chicken prices have risen slowly due to disease complications limiting availability, he said. While those prices are “positioned for more upward potential,” the increase “may not necessarily occur at the same rate as eggs, at least for now.” More

Since 2023, most retirees must take required minimum distributions, or RMDs, from pretax retirement accounts at age 73.
However, RMDs don’t apply to Roth individual retirement accounts while the owner or surviving spouse is alive.
That can provide more time for tax-free growth over the owner’s lifetime or for heirs, experts say.

© Marco Bottigelli | Moment | Getty Images

When saving for retirement, more time in the market can be beneficial depending on your goals and risk tolerance. Generally, the longer your investing timeline, the greater the opportunity to save and the bigger risk you can afford to take.
But your investing timeline can be shortened due to required minimum distributions, or RMDs, which apply to pretax 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts starting at age 73.

However, RMDs aren’t required for Roth IRAs during the original owner’s lifetime. Surviving spouses can also avoid RMDs if they roll the funds into their own Roth IRAs. 
Therefore, a Roth IRA provides a “much longer runway for tax-free investing,” said certified financial planner Thomas Scanlon at Raymond James in Manchester, Connecticut.
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Roth IRA contributions are made with after-tax dollars — meaning that you pay taxes on the contributions upfront — and any future withdrawals you make in retirement aren’t taxed as income.
For 2025, the Roth IRA contribution limit is $7,000, or $8,000 if you’re 50 and older, which is unchanged from the previous year. However, you or your spouse must have at least as much “earned income,” such as wages or self-employed earnings, as the amount of your contribution. 

While there are income limits for direct Roth IRA contributions, there are ways to bypass the earnings thresholds, including Roth conversions, which move pretax or nondeductible IRA funds to a Roth IRA.   
Anyone with a pretax IRA should “strongly consider” a yearly partial Roth conversion, said Scanlon, who is also a certified public accountant.
But it’s important to run tax projections before completing a Roth conversion to avoid unexpected consequences, experts say.

‘Tax-free compounding’ for legacy planning

Roth IRAs can also be a powerful tool for estate planning when the original owner and his or her spouse leave the assets to their children, experts say.
Without RMDs during the owner’s lifetime, there can be more “tax-free compounding” — or growth on growth — for heirs who eventually inherit the account, according to CFP Edward Jastrem, chief planning officer at Heritage Financial Services in Westwood, Massachusetts.
Since 2020, certain inherited accounts are subject to the “10-year rule,” meaning heirs must deplete inherited IRAs by the 10th year after the original account owner’s death. However, heirs won’t owe taxes on withdrawals. 
If the adult child leaves the inherited funds in the account for the full 10 years post-death, that’s “another decade of tax-free growth,” Jastrem said.  
“That’s a big gift to the heir,” he added. More

As House Republicans look for ways to cut spending to fund President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, they’ve floated plans that may raise student loan bills for millions.
The average new borrower could pay nearly $200 a month more if the GOP plans succeed, according to an early estimate by The Institute for College Access & Success.

US President Donald Trump speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on February 6, 2025. 
Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images

As House Republicans look for ways to slash spending to fund President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, they’ve floated proposals that could raise federal student loan bills for millions of borrowers.
GOP lawmakers are expected to use the budget reconciliation process to make major cuts to the federal budget. The savings from the student repayment plan overhaul would be $127.3 billion over 10 years, according to their estimate.

The timing is uncertain on when any of these changes could surface. It’s also possible that the final Republican plan will be different than those proposed.
But the average student loan borrower could pay nearly $200 a month more if the GOP plans to reshape the repayment program succeed, according to an early estimate by The Institute for College Access & Success.
“Most people don’t have an extra $200 a month to throw toward their student loan bill,” said Michele Shepard Zampini, senior director of college affordability at the institute.
Under the Republican-backed plans, the average borrower could see their monthly bill swell to $288 from $95, TICAS calculated. Researchers at TICAS estimated the monthly bill from repayment terms floated under current and former GOP-backed proposals. They compared those bills to what borrowers would pay under the Biden administration’s new income-driven repayment option, known as the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, or SAVE.
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The changes to the student loan system would likely only apply to new borrowers, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
If GOP lawmakers mirror the repayment terms in the legislation introduced by Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and supported by many House Republicans last year, the College Cost Reduction Act, the typical student loan borrower with an associate degree could pay around 50% more over time than they would under SAVE, a new report by the Center for American Progress noted. Graduate students, however, could pay between 10% and 15% less than on SAVE.
“Paying for tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy on the backs of student loan borrowers who are already struggling would be deeply unfair and harmful to millions of Americans,” said Sara Partridge, associate director of higher education policy at the Center for American Progress.

A reversal from SAVE plan

Republicans have expressed interest in narrowing the number of income-driven repayment, or IDR, plans for student loan borrowers to just one. Congress created IDR plans in the 1990s to make borrowers’ bills more affordable. The plans cap people’s monthly payments at a share of their income, and cancel any remaining debt after a certain period, typically 20 years or 25 years.
More than 12 million people were enrolled in the plans as of September 2024, according to Kantrowitz.
Former President Joe Biden’s SAVE plan, which is currently tied up in legal challenges, had the most generous terms of any IDR plan to date.
It cut many borrowers’ bills in half and offered expedited loan forgiveness to those with smaller balances. SAVE could cost as much as $475 billion over a decade, an analysis by the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model found.
That made it a target for Republicans, who argued that taxpayers shouldn’t be asked to subsidize the loan payments of those who’ve benefited from a higher education, experts explained. Critics also accused Biden of trying, with SAVE, to find a roundabout way to forgive student debt after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2023 that his sweeping debt cancellation plan was unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, consumer advocates say that most families now need to borrow to send their children to college and that they will require more affordable ways to repay their debt. Research shows that student loans make it harder for people to start businesses, buy a house and even have children.
In addition to scrapping SAVE and leaving borrowers’ with just one IDR plan option, Republican lawmakers may also move to end the loan forgiveness that borrowers are currently entitled to after a certain time period on the plans, experts said.
That would deprive many borrowers of a way out of their debt, according to Kantrowitz.
“It will effectively be a form of never-ending indentured servitude,” he said.

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Higher supply of available units for rent is fostering a renter-friendly market in the U.S. 
But it might not last — on top of low profitability, construction companies are facing uncertainties, an economist points out. 
Here are three things to do now while you can.

Maskot | Maskot | Getty Images

Renters should reap the benefits of a lower-cost rental market while they can. It might not last, experts say. 
As of December, the median asking rent price in the U.S. was $1,695, down 0.5% — or $8 — from November, according to a report by Realtor.com. The latest rent price is 1.1% lower — or $18 — from a year before, and down 3.7% from peak highs in July 2022.

Rent prices have come down because newly built apartments are increasing the supply of units available. With more inventory, some property managers must consider lowering their asking prices to attract tenants. 
“We’re calling it a renter’s market. We think that’s going to continue for the next year,” Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, recently told CNBC.
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But this renter-friendly market is not forever.
With construction activity of multifamily housing slowing down, the renter’s market might fizzle out after this year, experts say. 

“This construction boom is probably going to be over and rents will probably start going up again,” Fairweather said.

What’s slowing down supply

“We’re seeing multifamily construction permitting slowing a bit,” said Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com.
There are several reasons behind this. With rent prices coming down, it’s not  “economically viable,” or profitable, at the moment to build multifamily housing, Berner said.
There’s also a level of uncertainty about the current administration’s policies around tariffs and deportations, he said. 

This week, President Donald Trump imposed broad tariffs on imports from China. He paused the implementation of 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico for at least 30 days. 
In part due to such policy changes, costs are increasing for builders, Berner said. Tariffs on lumber and other materials make prices go up while mass deportation plans are making the labor force “smaller and more expensive,” he said.
Nearly a third, or 31%, of construction tradesmen in the U.S. in 2022 were immigrants, according to the National Association of Home Builders, which analyzed 2022 Census data.
“Anything that threatens to disrupt the flow of immigrant labor will send shock waves to the labor market in home construction,” Jim Tobin, president and CEO of the NAHB, previously told CNBC.

3 key moves for renters

If you’re in the rental market right now or plan to start looking this year, here are key steps you can take to maximize affordability while it’s still a renter’s market:
1. Ask for a multiyear lease to secure a lower cost
If you’re in an area where prices have been coming down, you could tell your landlord or property manager you’re interested in signing a multiyear lease if they reduce the rent price, Berner said. 
In such negotiations, it can be helpful to have something to offer in return, like being flexible on the length of the lease, or paying a larger security deposit, he said.
Tenant turnover can be expensive for landlords, especially if the property sits unoccupied for a few months.
2. If you plan to buy a home, start saving now
“If you’re a renter who intends to become a homeowner, this is a good time to save on rent,” Berner said — and then bank the difference for your down payment.
Builders are expected to pivot their priorities and build more homes in the for-sale market this year. Single-family housing starts are forecast to increase by 13.8% in 2025, totaling 1.1 million new homes, according to Realtor.com data.
Many renters struggle to build wealth in the U.S., and financial obstacles like high rent can keep would-be buyers from coming up with enough money for a down payment.
If you manage to lower your monthly rent costs, “stash away some cash for a down payment,” Berner said. “The larger your down payment can be, the better.”

3. Keep tabs on affordable markets elsewhere
It can be tempting to look at more affordable housing markets as ideal places to move to, but experts don’t recommend uprooting your life and career just because rent prices are falling in one metro versus another. 
On the other hand, if you’re looking to move at some point, it can be helpful to stay updated on where affordability is improving the most.
For example, Austin, Texas, is the top metro among Redfin’s “most affordable metros,” or places where renters typically earn more money than they need in order to afford the typical rental unit. The typical renter in the area makes $69,781 annually, which is 25.14% higher than the $55,760 the site estimates is required to afford a typical apartment there, Redfin found.
“Pay attention to how things are changing market to market and where you know you can make your money go the furthest,” Berner said.

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