This seems like an odd way to think about the problem to me.<p>Housing is, to a first order approximation, the only thing I spend money on.<p>Savings are framed in terms of &#x27;how long could I afford the rent&#x27;, or &#x27;how long before I could pay off a mortgage&#x27;.<p>Everything else is.. well, fluff. I would be happy to read books for a lifetime, I don&#x27;t need &#x27;fancy&#x27; food, but a stable home is pretty important to me.<p>A 1 bedroom apartment with a reasonable commute to my job costs £10000pa as a lower bound. Add on the UK&#x27;s equivalent of property tax and you&#x27;re at 11000.<p>Food? 1-2K. Gas, electricity, water, internet, cell phone? 1K, maybe 1.5K. So a combined upper bound of 3500.<p>The only place in which those costs would get to 100% of housing would be in a depressed economic area. One in which most would struggle to find a job that paid much more than minimum wage.<p>So the argument should be flipped, I think. Income inequality only actually matters at all because people have to buy housing. If everyone had a stable home then it would matter far less that other people could afford more toys. It&#x27;s an issue because having a stable base is such a useful thing - without that problem, I don&#x27;t think it matters that some are rich and some are poor, not really anyway.