1 in 4 US renters must use half their pay for housing costs

Financial pain - felt every month when the rent is due - still exists for many millions in the 'middle class.'  PB
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From the Associated Press online:

More than one in four U.S. renters have to use at least half their family income to pay for housing and utilities.

That's the finding of an analysis of Census data by Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit that helps finance affordable housing.

The number of such households has jumped 26 percent to 11.25 million since 2007.

Since the end of 2010, rental prices have surged at nearly twice the pace of average hourly wages, according to data from the real estate firm Zillow and the Labor Department...

The crisis reflects one of the shortcomings of the recovery from the Great Recession: Income has failed to match rent increases.

At the same time, construction has failed to keep pace with demand from renters.

The recession pushed more millennials, former homeowners who faced foreclosure and low-wage workers into rental housing.

A result is that 2.3 million more families face pressures that leave them perilously close to homelessness...

More than 30 percent of renters in California, Florida, New Jersey and New York state devote at least half their incomes to housing and utilities, according to the analysis.

Other than Alaska, South Dakota and Wyoming, at least 20 percent of renters in every state face similarly high costs relative to income...

The Great Recession caused waves of foreclosures and layoffs that pushed more Americans into renting.

More than 36 percent of people now rent, compared with 31 percent before the recession began in late 2007.

The increased demand has yet to be matched by construction and renovations...
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Link:http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNAFFORDABLE_RENTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-05-01-17-02-55