Losing Ground: The Struggle of Moderate-Income Households to Afford Rising Costs Of Housing and Transportation

Robert Hickey, Jeffrey Lubell, Peter Haas and Stephanie Morse

The Center for Housing Policy and the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s new report by Robert Hickey and Jeffrey Lubell measures how combined housing and transportation costs burden moderate-income households.  Looking at the 25 largest metro areas in the United States and using newly available data, the report finds that the problem has not only gotten worse in the last decade but also that moderate-income households are disproportionately saddled by these heavier costs. Notably, transportation costs vary greatly and influence the overall affordability of metro areas significantly. Moderate-income homeowners also carry heavier cost burden than renters. The report offers policy implications of these trends and highlight promising approaches available to local and state governments that help make the combined costs of place more manageable for moderate-income.

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