Forty-Three Million U.S. Households Burdened by Excessive Housing Costs

From RealTrends.com: More than 43 million U.S. households pay excessive shares of income for housing according to The State of the Nation’s Housing 2013, released last week by Harvard University’s Center for Housing Studies. Thirty-seven percent of all U.S. households are overburdened by housing costs, paying out monthly more than 30 percent of income, the housing affordability benchmark, just to keep a roof over their heads.A staggering 20.6 million households paid more than half their total income for housing in 2011, according to the most recent Census Bureau figures available. These households are defined as severely burdened, and their numbers have been rising steadily for a decade. The number of severely burdened households rose by 347,000 from 2010 to 2011, 2.6 million from 2007 when the recession began, and 6.7 million from a decade ago.

This report examines household statistics for both types of housing tenure, those headed by renters and those residing in owner-occupied houses. It reveals that the number of cost-burdened and severely burdened households continue to rise and actually were increasing long before the 2007 crash.