Homebuyers will have to demonstrate their housing costs are no more than 39% of their gross household income.

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But his job is in the big city, where federal, state and local income taxes, which have not changed, eat up nearly a third of his gross household income and nearly half of every raise.

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And that 10% is not easily noticed by most voters: though the average household spends a fifth of its gross income on health, the lion's share of the fee paid to the doctor is met by the state insurance system and the rest, entirely or very largely, by supplementary private-sector insurance provided by employers and financed through payroll deductions.

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