US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen voiced new investments to support affordable housing financing over the next three years on Monday during a visit to Minneapolis, MN. The increased attention to housing comes as the 2024 election season heats up with the first presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump right around the corner this week.

Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman joins Asking for A Trend for special coverage on Yellen's comments and break down the Biden administration's efforts to boost US housing supply.

Watch Yahoo Finance's full, exclusive interview with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Asking for a Trend.

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

Rick, what do you make of the Biden administration's effort to boost housing supply?

Rick, Why now?

Um, let's see.

In four months, there is an election.

There's an event coming up.

That's it.

I mean, you know, many people would probably be surprised to hear that.

Uh, the Biden administration has been trying to do this all along.

Uh, I mean, this this was affordable.

Housing was part of Biden's build back.

Better plan that he campaigned on in 2020 that, uh, was couldn't get that through Congress.

So it kind of died.

Uh, but Biden has been doing a bunch of what you might call small bore things to, um, try to move the needle in communities, Let's say and, uh, what Janet Yellen is doing in Minnesota this week.

This is part of, uh, a blitz of Biden Cabinet officials and other members of the Biden administration going across the country holding community events and what the White House is calling the lowering costs agenda.

So, in case, uh, you not aware out there, President Biden is out there trying to lower costs for you?

Uh, so that's what afford more affordable, make life more affordable and why Why might they be focusing on that?

Oh, because inflation is Biden's biggest liability on the economy.

So, uh, what Janet Yellen others are gonna be doing is going out touting, you know, bits of money from the infrastructure bill from the green energy bill that are doing something rural.

Electricity costs are coming down, whatever they can find.

Um, is it gonna notice?

I mean, will this get through to anybody?

The follow up being Is it gonna work?

Rick?

Is it gonna work?

I mean, I kind of doubt it, but, um, you you you have to keep in mind that, um, this election is looking so tight that, um we've talked about this before.

I mean, this this is gonna come down to a relatively small number of swing voters in swing communities in swing states.

So if you can persuade 50 people here and 50 people there Oh, maybe Biden is doing a pretty Maybe he actually is doing something to make your life a little bit better.

That could be meaningful.

I mean, it really is, um, at the grass roots in the community level that this matters at this point.

Um, so That's why we're seeing this blitz this week.

And I think we're gonna be seeing stuff like this all the way up until, uh, Election Day in November.

And just to give you a little more specifics here, what we're talking about in the in terms of the announcements today $100 million over the next three years to support affordable housing initiatives.

Also, um, Yellen is urging Congress to pass legislation, uh, to expand the low income housing tax credit, which I guess good luck in this, uh, divided Congress.

Right.

But the $100 million they can do, they don't have to worry about Congress to do that part of it.

So you said that they've been doing some of these things at the margins all along.

Has any of that helped?

What do I mean?

What do economists say about all of that?

I mean, so it it it's very difficult to answer the question because you have to go to the counterfactual.

What if Biden had not been doing this stuff?

And what if he had been doing it but not talking about it, But, uh, there was a There's a There's a series of focus groups, uh, run by this analyst called Rich Tao that I pay attention to.

And he did one focus group in one of the swing states.

I can't remember which one, and he assembled 10 voters.

He records the thing on a zoom call, and he he says things to them like, Is anybody in this group aware of anything President Biden has done on student debt?

And people just look at the screen and nobody is aware of anything Biden has done on student debt or whatever the big issues are, is it?

Can you think of anything President Biden has done on infrastructure and people just look at if you own?

If you owe on your student loan and you didn't have to pay for a few years, how did you think that?

I mean, there's a big disconnect there that my point here is There is a big disconnect between what Biden signed the biggest infrastructure law in a long time.

In 2021 he has cancelled lots of student loans, even though the Supreme Court struck down the big one.

He's done a lot of these smaller programmes, Um, yet people don't know about it.

And these are people who say they are voters who intend to vote in November.

Um, who just are not getting the what explains that.

I don't think anybody is entirely clear.

I mean it.

It's a bunch of different things.

There's so much clutter on the news.

Um, people don't know what to believe.

Uh, Biden talks through mainstream media, but everybody's watching tiktok instead.

Um, but Biden has a communication problem, for sure, and I don't know if it's just if it's that he doesn't scream loud enough, the way Trump does.

Or, uh, it's something about his personality, or it's the It's the mediums he's trying to work through, or that people are just tuning out politics.

I mean, it could be all some of all of the above.

But Biden is just having a real hard problem, getting people to know what he what actually has been going right during his term