As programs that address the housing needs of middle-income renters become increasingly common in an environment of limited resources, it is crucial to understand the characteristics of the households these programs are intended to serve. In a recent paper, “Subsidizing the Middle: Policies, Tradeoffs, and Costs of Addressing Middle-Income Affordability Challenges,” we not only examine middle-income housing programs, but also consider who these programs would potentially serve and describe the affordability challenges faced by middle-income renters.
In 2022, 14.4 million renter households (about one-third of all renters) earned between 60 and 120 percent of the area median income (AMI). These middle-income households have faced rapidly worsening affordability, though the extent of their challenges pales in comparison to that of lower-income households. Indeed, an astounding 80 percent of lower-income renters had cost burdens in 2022 (spending over 30 percent of their income for housing), representing a 2.5 percentage point increase since before the pandemic. By comparison, about 33 percent of middle-income renters were cost burdened in 2022, up 6.3 percentage points from 2019. Within the middle-income group, cost burdens decline quickly as incomes rise, from 47 percent of renters earning 60-80 percent of AMI, to 28 percent of renters earning 80-100 percent of AMI, and 17 percent of those earning 100-120 percent of AMI.