Income and Hardship: Affordability of Housing

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Recent public policy initiatives are aimed at promoting work so that families can pay for their basic needs. However, even people who work may have problems paying their housing expenses. The Department of Housing and Urban Development reported recently that many people working full-time at the minimum wage have difficulty affording decent-quality housing in the private rental market.

Because states now have increased flexibility in designing social support programs and their links to housing assistance, it is important to know how many people have difficulty affording housing. To arrive at an answer, parents and adults without children were asked whether they had experienced housing hardship — that is, whether they had been unable to pay their mortgage, rent, or utility bills at any time during the previous 12 months.

Nationally, 16 percent of parents had experienced housing hardship. Among families with low incomes (under 200 percent of the poverty level), 28 percent had experienced housing hardship, as opposed to 9 percent of families with higher incomes, a statistically significant difference.

Among the 13 states surveyed, 12 percent to 20 percent of all parents had experienced housing hardship. The percentage was higher than the national average in Alabama, New York, and Texas and lower than the national average in Colorado, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Of low-income parents, 24 percent to 39 percent had experienced housing hardship. Percentages exceeded the national average in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Texas. Colorado was below the national average.

Nationally, 8 percent of adults without children reported that they had been unable to pay their mortgage, rent, or utility bills at some time during the previous 12 months. The rate was 17 percent for childless adults with low incomes, compared to 5 percent for childless adults with higher incomes, a statistically significant difference.

Across the states surveyed, 14 percent to 22 percent of low-income childless adults had experienced housing hardship. The percentage of these adults with housing hardship was higher than the national average in Mississippi and lower than the national average in Wisconsin. In all states, two to three times as many low-income as higher-income childless adults had experienced housing hardship.

Note: The Portable Document Format (PDF) of this report includes all tables and charts.

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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