Nearly half of all renter households in the US were cost-burdened in 2023, meaning they paid more than 30% of their income towards housing costs, according to new government data.
It’s extremely difficult to pull off today, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t an appropriate figure. The “wants” and “investment” categories have effectively been wiped out for a large number of people, which isn’t a healthy and sustainable way to live long term.
This is what the entire “living wage” argument is based on. Regular people aren’t making enough money to have a healthy budget. Well, some are just over inflating wants, but that’s not the people I’m talking about.
The notion that housing should take up a particular portion of your income is fundamentally flawed. It relies on a fixed relationship between prices of different classes of goods, when that relationship varies over place and time.
Which situation is better: making 50k take-home and paying 15k in housing costs (30%), or making 100k and paying 50k (50%)?
There are real problems in the housing market and overall affordability, but this statistic is like trying to measure national health by the percentage of people drinking 8 glasses a day of water.
It’s extremely difficult to pull off today, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t an appropriate figure. The “wants” and “investment” categories have effectively been wiped out for a large number of people, which isn’t a healthy and sustainable way to live long term.
This is what the entire “living wage” argument is based on. Regular people aren’t making enough money to have a healthy budget. Well, some are just over inflating wants, but that’s not the people I’m talking about.
The notion that housing should take up a particular portion of your income is fundamentally flawed. It relies on a fixed relationship between prices of different classes of goods, when that relationship varies over place and time.
Which situation is better: making 50k take-home and paying 15k in housing costs (30%), or making 100k and paying 50k (50%)?
There are real problems in the housing market and overall affordability, but this statistic is like trying to measure national health by the percentage of people drinking 8 glasses a day of water.