“The Rent Eats First”
Rental Housing Unaffordability in the United States
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21633718 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Whitney Airgood-Obrycki (0000-0003-3644-1716, Harvard University, corresponding author), Alexander Hermann (0000-0001-6103-7884, Harvard University), Sophia Wedeen (Harvard University) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1272-1292 |
| Publication date | 2023-11-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Housing Policy Debate (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1051-1482 • E-ISSN: 2152-050X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10511482.2021.2020866 |
| OpenAlex | W4220682566 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 35 |
| References cited | 11 |
The United States is in a housing affordability crisis, with nearly half of all renter households spending more than 30% of their incomes on rent and utilities each month. This traditional measure of housing affordability may understate the hardships renter households face because it does not consider the array of expenses households have. Whereas housing policy has relied on percentage-of-income measures to indicate whether housing is affordable, researchers over the last three decades have called for a residual income approach that uses spending estimates to calculate what a household can actually afford. This article examines the extent of the affordability crisis by comparing standard cost burden rates for working-age renter households with residual-income cost burdens. Using the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator and the 2018 American Community Survey, we estimate the number of renter households that do not have enough income to afford a comfortable standard of living after paying rent and utilities. We investigate several policy levers, finding that a combined policy that addresses both housing and transportation affordability would have the largest impact on reducing residual-income cost burdens
Affordable housing · Business · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economic rent · Economics · Household income · Labour economics · Public economics · Rental housing · Renting · Housing Market and Economics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
Spatial and gender disparities in rental affordability among young adults
Beyond forced moves
Livability vs. Affordability; Disability and Housing in the United States
The impacts of rent burden and eviction on mortality in the United States, 2000-2019
Predicting the longitudinal patterns of housing affordability stress
Redistributive Majoritarianism
Housing Cost Burden and Outcomes Among Medicaid Beneficiaries With Heart Failure
Housing and choice in Iquique and Alto Hospicio, Chile
Earned Income Tax Credit Plus
Ensuring Housing Stability and Protections for the Nation’s Renters
A Shelter by Any Other Name? Delivering Homeless Crisis Accommodation Services in a Hotel
Expanding Access to Rental Assistance
State Affordable Housing Tax Credits and Renter Outcomes
Profit or Protection? Evictions and Housing Dynamics in Immigrant Neighborhoods
Rent Burden and Demographic Change Among Veterans
Advance rent payment and its influence on access to housing by the urban poor
Routine Dilapidation
Housing stability for disabled parents in the United States
Analyzing Variations in Characteristics between Jurisdictions That Regulate Small, Affordable Housing Solutions in the United States
The rent eats first’
Trends in disability-related inequalities in housing affordability in Australia, 2003 to 2022
Moving, moving, moving
How Does Social Inequality Alter Relationships Between Porous Cranial Lesions and Mortality? Examining the Relationship Between Skeletal Indicators of Stress, Socioeconomic Status, and Survivorship in a Pediatric Autopsy Sample
Rethinking employee housing
The Covid-19 Pandemic Contributed to Disparities in Housing-Cost Burden Among WIC-Participating Households in the Most Populous County in California
Rental housing types and economic wellbeing in Canada
Housing costs are not a monolith
Housing costs and food purchasing characteristics
Overall and race-specific associations between state-level minimum wage policy and food insecurity in the United States
Structural Racism, the Social Determination of Health, and Health Inequities
Expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for Young Adults and Mental Health of US Home Renters, 2021–2023
Social Reproduction and the Housing Question
The role of government benefits in reducing housing cost burdens, 2009 – 2022
When are they insecure? Housing arrangements and residential mobility among families with children
Consequences of Eviction-Led Forced Mobility for School-Age Children in Houston
What is housing affordability? The case for the residual income approach
A new measure of housing affordability
Housing Cost Burden, Material Hardship, and Well-Being
Evicted. Poverty and profit in the American city
Racial disparity in exposure to housing cost burden in the United States
Rent burden and the Great Recession in the USA
Shelter Poverty
Is Housing Unaffordable? Why Isn't It More Affordable
A Right to Housing
| Citations per year | 8.75 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |