Why Housing Affordability Matters

Why Housing Affordability Matters

Affordable housing is not merely a laudable social goal — it has far reaching economic impacts on economic growth, opportunity, social mobility, and equity. Housing costs represent the single largest component of total household expenses for most American families and households. What residual income remains after housing expenses represents the income left for necessities (i.e. food, transportation, medicine, and insurance) and discretionary household spending, which then drives spending patterns for local goods and services. As housing costs eat up increasing shares of household incomes, consumer spending at the local level suffers (The True Costs of Affordable Rental Housing, Jorge M. Perez FIU Metropolitan Center, 2017). We have seen this dynamic play out in the COVID-19 pandemic. As the FIU Jorge M. Pérez Metropolitan Center has documented elsewhere, the growing income gap between households at the bottom of the income ladder and those at the top has accelerated over the last decade. The gap between the net worth of families at the top and bottom income categories has grown even faster than income inequality. Households in the top quintile of income have experienced a dramatic median household net worth increase, while households in the bottom quintile saw their real median household net worth dip into the negative. Owning a home is the largest single asset investment held by most Americans — the cornerstone of upward economic mobility and wealth building for middle and lowincome families. For renters, increasing housing costs also slow wealth building and eat into savings. Enabling social mobility is one of the most pressing economic and political issues of our time. As such, improving housing affordability lies at the center of improving economic mobility and closing income inequality. Housing affordability also affects educational performance and attainment. Households with better affordability ratios generally have higher rates of savings, more cash, and higher levels of equity (in an owned home) that can be applied to education spending for their children, including University education costs. In 2016, research from a team at the Johns Hopkins University found that children of families spending around 30 percent of their income on housing costs had significantly higher math and reading test scores than families who spent more than 50 percent of their income on housing. The research team’s reasoning to explain the results is that homes with high housing cost-burdens have less disposable income to spend on computers, books, school supplies, educational trips, and other items which support intellectual development and school scores. Compounding lower performance, difficulty in school also puts lower income children at a much higher risk of dropping out altogether. This concern has been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the inequities of remote classroom learning. Lower housing cost-burden and higher quality housing also lead to better family health outcomes. Households with lower cost burden rates have more income available for health care expenditures, including insurance, especially for middle and low-income households. Families on the margin of home affordability are often forced to choose between health care and paying the rent or mortgage, and a single unexpected health expense can throw a family into foreclosure or eviction. These negative impacts are expected to worsen in the coming months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For younger workers and college graduates just entering the workforce, high housing