Thanks to President Joe Biden’s policies, American renters are finding it difficult to afford to have a roof over their heads. Between the rising cost of rent and a housing shortage, many renters have been put in a difficult situation.
According to a 2022 Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University report, half of American renters cannot afford housing. Though the study is two years old, Gateway Pundit suggests that nothing has changed except that the cost of rent has gone up.
In 2022, a record half of Americans paid over 30% of their income for rent and utilities, NPR reported.
“We actually saw increases across every single income category that we look at, which sort of surprised us,” said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate with the center and the report’s lead author.
Since 2019, households with an annual income between $30,000 and $74,999 had the hardest time affording rent. Of the American renters working full-time, a third were still burdened by the cost.
Airgood-Obrycki believed that the percentage of renters experiencing cost burden could not get higher for those with an annual income of under $30,000. The study found that the percentage did increase to an all-time high of 83%.
“So you might not be living in as good of a neighborhood. You might be commuting farther. You might be sacrificing the quality of your school system,” Airgood-Obrycki said. “And often what we’re seeing is that even when people are attempting to make these trade-offs, they still end up paying too much for housing.”
That is what happened to Genuine Campbell, a renter in Philadelphia. She reported that in the last two years, her rent went from $1,300 a month to $1,600 for a two-bedroom apartment. The single mother of four worked as a hotel valet and found it difficult to pay rent and bills.
“Do you want to pay the bills and then give half the rent, or do you want to try to do the whole rent and then be back on bills?” she said.
Americans are struggling to pay their rents this month, according to a new report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. https://t.co/v4OyRK6PU1
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) January 25, 2024
Campbell had to sacrifice safety for cost since she could not afford to live in a nicer area. Her children were unable to play outside because of the apartment’s location.
A July report found that the massive amount of legal and illegal immigrants has resulted in inflated prices. With an estimated 8 million immigrants entering the country since 2021, it has put a toll on the housing market nationwide.
Judy Schwartz-Naber, a Walgreens employee from Tennessee, saw her rent double from $450 to $900 in seven years. She said that the rent increase has raised “a lot of fear out there” due to tenants fearing eviction because they can no longer afford the cost.
