Unaffordable rents are changing low-income life, blighting the prospects of not only the poor but also growing shares of the lower middle class after decades in which rent increases have outpaced income growth, the New York Times reported. Nearly two-thirds of households in the bottom 20 percent of incomes face “severe cost burdens,” meaning they pay more than half of their income for rent and utilities, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Among working-class renters — the 20 percent of people in the next level up the income scale — the share with severe burdens has nearly tripled in two decades to 17 percent. For both groups, the proportion with severe cost burdens has reached record highs. The federal government deems shelter affordable if it takes 30 percent or less of household income, a goal that only about half of the nation’s 44 million renter households meet.
