Every time we post on social media about New Hampshire’s affordability crisis, the comments pour in.
“Young people are lazy. If they worked harder, they could afford a house.”
“They just need to stop buying coffee and ordering takeout.”
“Everyone wants luxury. That’s the problem.”
“Why don’t young people just get a better job?”
It’s easy to say that people just need to make better choices. But the truth is, even people who are working full time or holding down two jobs, budgeting carefully and saving where they can are struggling to afford the basics. And it’s not because of lattes. It’s because of math.
A new report from the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, titled “Affordability Eroded: Changes to the Cost of Living in New Hampshire,” shows just how dramatically life has shifted in the past decade. In 2015, a typical family earning the state’s median household income could pay for a few essential costs — housing, child care, food, gasoline and health care — and still have money left over.
Today, that same family has $17,349 less left at the end of the year after paying for those same few basic expenses. Instead of saving or spending on emergencies, they’re in the red and that’s before accounting for student loans, clothing or other everyday family costs.
That’s not a sign of laziness or wasteful spending. It’s a sign that the math has changed.
Take housing. In 1999, the median New Hampshire single-family house cost around $137,000. As of June 2025, it was nearly $570,000 — an increase of more than 300%. The monthly mortgage payment on a median-priced house has more than doubled in the past 10 years alone.
Health care tells a similar story. The average family insurance premium has climbed 121% since 2005, reaching $26,000 a year. Deductibles are more than four times what they were in 2005. Even with insurance, families are paying thousands more out of pocket each year for care.
Child care is another pressure point. For two young children, a typical Granite State family now pays roughly $30,000 a year, which is about 30% of median income. Over the course of childhood, that’s nearly $300,000 for two children that could otherwise go toward a home, savings or education.
And speaking of education, the people who invested in college to build a better future are now paying for it twice — once in tuition and again in debt costs. In New Hampshire, graduates carry some of the nation’s heaviest student-loan burdens due to lack of robust public investment, leaving many young families juggling enormous student loan payments alongside housing, child care and health care costs.
Meanwhile, wages simply haven’t kept pace. Median household income in New Hampshire rose about 76% between 2005 and 2024, unadjusted for inflation — but housing costs rose 104%, health care premiums 121%, and child care and energy prices climbed even faster.
The result is a structural affordability gap, a growing disconnect between what it costs to live here and what families actually earn. Young Granite Staters today aren’t less motivated than their parents. They’re just facing a different economic reality. A generation ago, a college degree and a steady job could reliably support a family. Now, even two working adults with college degrees can find themselves priced out of homeownership, juggling multiple jobs to afford child care, or cutting back on medical appointments because they can’t afford it.
This isn’t about spending too much on coffee. It’s about an economy in which it is harder and harder for ordinary people to get ahead, no matter how hard they work or how carefully they plan.
And it’s not just a personal finance issue. It’s a statewide problem with long-term consequences. If families can’t afford to live here, our workforce will shrink. Young people will leave. Employers will struggle to hire. And our aging population will grow without enough younger workers to sustain the economy or provide care.
Solving this won’t be easy, but it starts with rejecting the myth that individual choices are always to blame. We need policies that match the scale of the challenge — from building more affordable homes and expanding child care access to tackling health care costs and supporting workforce development.
New Hampshire’s affordability crisis wasn’t caused by pumpkin spice lattes or food delivery apps. It was built, slowly, by rising costs that have outpaced wages. The sooner we face that reality, the sooner we can start building a future where working families can once again make ends meet, and maybe even save a little at the end of the month.
Gene Martin is the executive director of the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, independent research nonprofit that examines issues related to the state budget, the economy, public policy and the financial security of Granite Staters. You can read NHFPI’s report, “Affordability Eroded: Changes to the Cost of Living in New Hampshire,” at nhfpi.org.