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Half of all renters in the United States spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities, more than at any other time in history, according to a new report by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
The center’s analysis of 2022 census data found that 22.4 million renter households are burdened, with a record 12.1 million spending more than half their income on housing. The surge in housing costs affects a wide swath of renters, from low-income households to higher earners. Middle-income renters earning from $30,000 to $74,999 saw the sharpest rise in cost burden since 2019. And a record number of Americans — 653,100 — were homeless on a given night in January 2023, the report found.
“It was astounding to see,” said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. “Really broadly, across the income spectrum, it was getting worse for everyone.”
Renters are still paying the financial consequences of the pandemic, when rents in cities across the country rose by double-digit percent increases as Americans moved during a period of remote work. Even as the rental market cools — asking rents fell by almost 1 percent in 2023 — they are still up 19 percent from the start of the pandemic, according to Apartment List. “It’s definitely worse than it’s ever been,” said Cea Weaver, a campaign coordinator at Housing Justice for All in New York. “Middle class people, lower middle class people, working class people, they cannot afford their rent.”
There is reason for optimism, at least in the short-term. Vacancies are up. And 1 million new multifamily units are under construction, almost entirely rentals, the most the country has seen in decades, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Dr. Airgood-Obrycki described the change as “a glimmer of hope.”
Interviews and correspondence with scores of renters around the country revealed deep financial insecurity, as their rents grew far faster than their incomes. Struggling with rising food costs, renters skipped meals, drove less to save gas money or eliminated social activities. While some renters put basic expenses on their credit cards, others borrowed money from friends and family or tapped their retirement funds. While some renters were unemployed or relied on public assistance, most interviewed for this article held full-time jobs and held college or postgraduate degrees.
For many, making ends meet feels like an impossible puzzle to solve.
“Will this ever end? Will it ever get better? Can I get out of this?” said Alex Larraza, 29, who said he pays 49 percent of his $55,000 annual salary toward rent and utilities for a duplex in North Kingstown, R.I. “It’s gotten so bad. Should I eat or should I worry about the heat getting turned off?”
He said he is behind in his utility bills and has abandoned any hobbies that cost money. Sometimes, he skips meals. “I’ll make my daughter lunch, feed her dinner and then I’ll just not eat,” said Mr. Larraza, who works for a defense contractor. With a college degree and 11 years of military service, he finds his current situation baffling. “I never thought that someone who took all these steps would be struggling so much,” he said. Next month his rent, now $1,950 a month, is going up another $150.
In Manhattan, Margaret Tomasiewicz, 27, a project associate at a health care technology company, said she spends 44 percent of her $64,350 annual salary on rent and utilities in a two-bedroom apartment she shares with a roommate on the Upper East Side. Once, she didn’t have money for a subway ride home from work, and slipped onto the bus without paying instead. The stress takes an emotional toll. “There are days when I can’t get out of bed,” she said.
Ms. Tomasiewicz moved to New York from Wisconsin in 2022, and said she underestimated how expensive it would be to live in the city, wrongly assuming that she would have enough disposable income left over after paying her $2,350 monthly rent. “My roommate will go and hang out with our friends or see a show, do New York things,” she said. “And I can’t do my laundry because I don’t have any cash.”
Even renters who spend less of their income on rent, like Wendy Ross, 55, a nurse in Flagstaff, Ariz., feel the squeeze. “In my mid-50s I’m teaching myself how to camp so I that can take vacations,” she said. A single mother with two sons, Ms. Ross, earns about $86,000 a year and pays $2,250 a month for a three-bedroom townhouse. She is counting down the months until her younger son, a sophomore in high school, graduates, and she can leave Flagstaff. She is considering buying an R.V. and working as a traveling nurse. But for now, she said, “We do without.”
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