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A recent report indicates that almost half of all renters in the United States are currently struggling to afford their housing costs, despite President Joe Biden and his administration promoting his economic policies.
The report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University found that in 2022, as rents went up during the COVID-19 pandemic, “a record half of U.S. renters paid more than 30% of their income for rent and utilities,” NPR reported, adding that almost have of those renters “were severely cost-burdened, paying more than 50 percent of their income.”
“We actually saw increases across every single income category that we look at, which sort of surprised us,” Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate with the center and the report’s lead author, told the outlet.
Since 2019, the most notable rise in housing unaffordability has occurred among households with annual incomes ranging from $30,000 to $74,999. Even among those who work full-time, one-third of renters in this income bracket are still facing challenges when it comes to affording their housing costs, according to the report.
For renters earning less than $30,000 – who were already facing significant challenges in affording housing – Airgood-Obrycki “didn’t think it could possibly get that much higher.” However, the report shows that it did indeed worsen, reaching a record high of 83 percent who are struggling with housing costs. She also noted that the amount of money these renters have left for all other household expenses has nearly halved, leaving them with just $310 a month, according to NPR, which cited the data.
She also said that the compromises that people have to make since Biden took office in order to get cheaper rent are not a guarantee.
“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.”
In addition to higher rents — and inflation in general — during the Biden administration, homelessness also hit a record high last year.
Despite a rosy jobs report this month that some say contains questionable math from the administration, the Biden White House’s economic record continues to get poor grades from a massive swath of the country.
A new survey is likely to provide Republicans with more political ammunition against Biden and Democrats in general heading into next year’s elections.
“As of November 2023, 62% of consumers relied on their next paycheck to cover their monthly financial outflows, the PYMNTS and LendingClub survey said. These consumers also own nearly 60% of the credit cards in the U.S. Moreover, 80% of paycheck-to-paycheck consumers own at least two credit cards on average,” Fox Business reported last month.
“The report also said that paycheck-to-paycheck cardholders are more than twice as likely as those not living paycheck-to-paycheck to carry a credit card balance over to the following month. Close to one-third said they reached their credit card limit, an average of $9,200, at least occasionally in the last year,” the outlet reported, citing the data.
U.S. consumers have accumulated an additional $48 billion in credit card debt during the third quarter of 2023, bringing the total owed to $1.08 trillion, as noted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in a recent analysis of household debt.
While Biden has been touting his “Bidenomics” plans and insisting that his economic policies have made the lives of Americans better, what they are telling pollsters is that his policies caused them to spend less this past Christmas season and, in many cases, had them working more hours or working another job simply to afford the holidays.
In the survey, Empower’s 2023 holiday spending report, a whopping 74 percent of the 1,000 people polled said that inflation has caused them to spend less this holiday season, and 31 percent said they are working more hours to afford it, Fox Business reported separately.
“The survey shows that over a third (34%) are trimming their budgets in favor of saving this year, while others are cutting back on buying gifts or non-essential expenses like dining out to stay on track,” Empower representative Courtney Burrell said to Fox Business.
