Widening Income Gap Sharpens Housing Crunch, Study Says

According to a recent report from the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, the gap between the cost of housing and the average income of low-wage workers has become increasingly wider. The study, released in January, points to “rapidly rising housing costs in the District” and states that D.C. has “lost a significant portion of its low-cost rental units in just the past three years.” 

  

The explosive growth of the gap between the rich and the poor in the nation’s capital is striking: the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute states that the number of affordable homes dropped by half in the past three years while the number of high-priced homes more than doubled. In contrast, during the same time-period the number of D.C. households earning less than $20,000 annually actually increased by 5,000 households, according to the Census Bureau. 

 

Because of the high cost of housing, the poor in D.C. that can afford a place to live are spending most of their income on housing. Four out of five extremely low-income families (earning roughly $25,000 each year for a family of four) spend more than 30% of their income on housing, the Institute report said, adding that three families in five spend more than half. In contrast, only one in six D.C. households with income above $42,000 (for a family of four) have comparably high housing costs. 

 

For more information, the study, Squeezed out: The Worsening Shortage of Affordable Housing for Low-Income D.C. Households, by Angie Rodgers, can be found at http://www.dcfpi.org/1-13-05hous.htm. 

 

“The District’s fast-rising housing costs affect everyone, but poorer households are much less able to handle those costs,” stated Angie Rodgers, a policy analyst at DCFPI and author of the report, on the DCFPI website. “More and more very poor families are facing housing problems that make it harder for them to hold on to their jobs and provide for their children. 


Region |Washington DC

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