Money Culture

January 27, 2022

For a whole host of pandemic-related reasons, rents dipped in 2020 as millions of Americans lost jobs, stayed home from college, left the cities, or arranged for aging parents to live with them.

But the economy has bounced back, and an additional 900,000 households entered the rental market in the first nine months last year. This unusually large surge in demand drove up rents and raised new concerns about housing affordability for the low- and middle-income workers who were already struggling to pay the rent.

The market for professionally managed apartments saw an unprecedented rent spike of 11 percent in the third quarter of 2021 compared with a year earlier. Prior to the pandemic, annual rent increases had averaged 2 percent to 5 percent. The biggest hikes are in pricier apartments and are being fueled by a strong job market and young adults in their 30s marrying or moving in with partners or friends.

“These higher-income renters aren’t just living in units that are higher end. They’re also competing for units that would be affordable to middle- and lower-income households,” said Alexander Hermann, senior research analyst with the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

“The affordability challenges they’re facing are real, and there’s plenty of reason to be concerned about what’s happening,” he said.

One positive development in a difficult rental market is that multifamily construction is at its highest level since the 1980s. However, it will take years for the new inventory to ease the pressures on apartment supplies and rents.

The low inventory of single-family houses for sale currently, combined with high house prices, are also driving up apartment demand by well-paid professionals. To satisfy the demand, hedge funds and other businesses are snapping up single- and multifamily homes and renovating them as rental properties. The high-end market is so hot that rents in this segment rose 14 percent last year, according to the Harvard housing center’s new report.

At the bottom of the income ladder, however, 23 percent of households with less than $25,000 in income are behind on rent, as are 15 percent of households earning between $25,000 and $50,000. These renters are disproportionately people of color, who felt the brunt of the massive job losses when businesses shut down early in the pandemic. …Learn More

October 26, 2021

The fate of the recent expansion of the federal child tax credit is uncertain in the ongoing budget negotiations in Congress. What is clear is that poor and low-income families are putting the increased assistance to good use.

Nine out of 10 families earning less than $35,000 are spending the money on one or more essential living expenses, which include food, utilities, housing, clothing or education needs like books and after-school programs, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The American Rescue Plan passed in March temporarily increased the credit from $2,000 to $3,600 per year per child for kids under age 6 and to $3,000 for older kids and teenagers. In another temporary provision in the legislation, the IRS sends the credit to families every month in the form of a monthly payment.

The child tax credit is also now fully refundable, which means that low-income people are eligible for the full credit even if they pay little or no income taxes. If the budget negotiations make this a permanent feature of the credit, the IRS would extend the federal assistance to 27 million more children in low-income families.

Unfortunately, the center estimates, there are some 4 million children in families with very low incomes that aren’t receiving the monthly payments, either because they didn’t file taxes in 2019 and 2020 or didn’t receive an economic relief check from the federal government. The IRS has created an online tool for parents to sign up and start receiving the credit.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities asked the people it surveyed about their specific uses for the monthly cash payments. Six out of 10 families earning under $35,000 said they are spending the money on food. About half are paying their utilities or housing expenses. Even the non-essential expenses seem like good uses for the extra funds, including car payments, childcare, and paying down debt.

Higher-income families also buy necessities with the extra cash. But low-income families struggle more to pay for their basic living expenses, and the center said they are using more of the money from the tax credit to pay for them. …Learn More