A new Harvard study found that about half of Americans are paying too much for rent. Though perhaps in unsurprising find, the study does provide some hard numbers that are worth examining.
What does “too much” mean? The study defined Americans who pay 30% of their income or more in rent to be “cost-burdened” and those paying 50% or more to be “severely cost-burdened”. Results reported that in 2011, 50% of Americans were cost burdened compared to 25% in 1960. 28% of Americans in 2011 were severely cost burdened.
Photo courtesy of bill lapp via flickrcc
In layman’s terms, the study concluded that the availability of new, affordable apartments has been nowhere near the growing demand and that the gap between the two has been widening annually since the 2007 recession.
Though the stream of foreclosures during the recession did provide an influx of rental structures, the growing prices of homes zoned out a large portion of the population from the possibility of home ownership and the resulting increase in demand for rental housing quickly outpaced the supply the foreclosed homes provided.
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