Housing Cost Burdens Reach Higher Up the Income Scale, But Remain Nearly Unavoidable at Lower Incomes

by Ellen Marya
Research Assistant

In conjunction with the release of our 2015 State of the Nation’s Housing Report, the Joint Center mapped the prevalence of housing cost burdens – a key measure of housing affordability – in the US’s 900 metropolitan and micropolitan areas. As the map series illustrates, the share of households living in unaffordable housing varies dramatically across the country and for both owners and renters. Housing cost burdens, defined as the expenditure of more than 30 percent of household income on housing costs, are less pervasive in the country’s interior, while higher burden rates are largely concentrated in coastal and more urban areas and among renter households in particular. But within these nationwide patterns, high burden rates reflect unique local dynamics of household incomes and housing costs.

American Households Feel the Strain of Housing Cost Burdens 
(click map to launch)

The relationship between cost burdens, incomes, and housing costs within the 100 most populous metro areas is illustrated in Figure 1. As the figure shows, while housing costs and household incomes tend to rise together, the trend in cost burdens is somewhat less straightforward. Metro areas with lower cost burden rates (less than 30 percent of households with cost burdens, shown in yellow) are largely those with both low median housing costs and low to moderate median household incomes. Metros with moderate cost burden rates (between 30 and 35 percent of households with cost burdens, shown in orange) are more likely to have wider income distributions and slightly higher median housing costs, so that housing affordability becomes more difficult for those at the lower end of the income spectrum. This is even more striking in the group of metros with high cost burden rates (35 percent or more of households with cost burdens, shown in red), which includes several of the highest-income and highest cost metro areas; in these, affordability challenges move up the income scale.

Figure 1 (move cursor over figure to access additional information)

Notes: Housing cost burdens are defined as housing costs of more than 30% of household income. Households with zero or negative income are assumed to have burdens, while renters paying no cash rent are assumed to be without burdens. Source: JCHS tabulations of US Census Bureau, 2013 American Community Survey.

Indeed, cost burden rates among higher income groups rise dramatically as median housing costs rise (Figure 2). Among the large metro areas with the highest cost burden rates, the share of cost-burdened middle income households (with incomes between $30,000 and $45,000 annually) rises from just over one third in relatively low cost Tucson, to more than three quarters in high cost San Jose. A similar pattern holds among upper-middle and high income households, with cost burden rates topping 15 percent of high income households (earning more than $75,000 per year) in eight high cost metros.

Figure 2 (click on legend entry to display each income band)

Notes: Housing cost burdens are defined as housing costs of more than 30% of household income. Households with zero or negative income are assumed to have burdens, while renters paying no cash rent are assumed to be without burdens. High cost burden metro areas have a metro-wide cost burden rate of 35 percent or more. Metro areas are ordered from lowest to highest median monthly housing costs. Source: JCHS tabulations of US Census Bureau, 2013 American Community Survey. 

The persistence of housing cost burdens among higher income groups illustrates the lack of affordable housing options for even those with considerable means in some of the country’s most vibrant metro areas. Even more troubling, however, is the near ubiquity of housing cost burdens among lower income households. As Figure 2 shows, cost burden rates top 80 percent among households earning less than $15,000 per year – about equivalent to full-time work at the federal minimum wage – in all higher burden metros, even those with lower median housing costs. Additionally, the national maps show that no less than half of all households earning under $15,000 per year are housing cost burdened in every metro and micro area in the country, regardless of how low median housing costs fall.

The immense challenge faced by low-income households in finding affordable housing has been intensively detailed in a number of other analyses. In its annual Out of Reach report, the National Low Income Housing Coalition concludes that a full-time minimum wage worker cannot afford to rent a one- or two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent in any state in the country, while the Urban Institute has mapped the growing shortage of units adequate, affordable, and available to lowest income renters in counties nationwide. As each of these inquiries shows, housing affordability remains a compelling need for the nation’s lowest income households.