2 groups becoming ‘severely cost-burdened’

Jim_SamsonThe Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University and Enterprise Community Partners just released a study that projected some pretty sobering news for 2 specific groups of Americans.

For the last 15 years, a category called “Severely cost-burdened renters” has been growing. That category is expected to expand even more over the next decade or so.

Are you a part of 1 of the 2 groups that will be most-affected?

In the United States, roughly 12 million households pay more than 50% of their income on rent. That’s an incredibly impactful statistic when you consider that the general rule is that you should pay no more than 30% of your income on rent in a perfect world.

Apparently it’s far from a perfect world.

This is all a part of a rent squeeze that’s gripping harder and harder for 2 particular groups – singles and retirees.

And that struggle is now expected to continue through 2025…

Let’s put some numbers to it. For households aged 65 to 74, the number of those becoming severely cost-burdened is projected to rise by 42%. For households aged 75 and up, that same number is expected to rise by 39%.

But if you want to talk about the present, single individuals and Milllenials make up the largest slice of the pie when it comes to severely cost-burdened renters. But you can’t ignore the depressing stat that 30% of elderly renters are spending over half of their incomes on housing today.

Now let me give you what are being thrown out there as the best and worst-case scenarios…

Best-Case Scenario

Even with the most optimistic outlook, we would basically tread water on this front. A very slight decrease in severely cost-burdened households is a possibility, but is unlikely.

Worst-Case Scenario

With more realistic and pessimistic projections, we could see the number of severely cost-burdened households rise all the way to almost 15 million over the next decade.

I’m not giving you this information to scare you. I’m informing you about this crisis so that you can be prepared. Right now it’s more important than ever to stay on top of your financial situation and investments.

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