January 25, 2024
Yes, that was the New York Times told us this morning, or at least part of what they told us. The piece, headlined “more renters than ever before are burdened by the rent they pay.” The basis for the article was a new report by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, which found that more than half of all renters pay more than 30 percent of their income for rent.
The first paragraph lays out the picture:
“Half of all renters in the United States spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities, more than at any other time in history, according to a new report by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.”
Later in the article the piece tells us that, according to Apartment List, rents have risen by 19.0 percent since the start of the pandemic. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average hourly wage for all workers has increased by 20.0 percent since the start of the pandemic. This means that rents on average, increased by 1.0 percentage points less than wages.
Hourly wages for production and non-supervisory workers, a category that excludes higher paid professionals and managers, have increased 22.4 percent since the start of the pandemic. This puts their pay increase more than 3.0 percentage points above the rent increase cited in the article.
It is possible to tell a somewhat worse story on rental inflation. The BLS measure of rents, which includes all occupied units, not just the ones changing hands, increased by 21.2 percent since the start of the pandemic. This would put the rent increase slightly above the increase in average wages for all workers, but still more than a full percentage point below the rise in wages for production and non-supervisory workers.
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