Housing: An Expanding Challenge Nationwide

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Housing affordability has emerged as a key issue in this year’s U.S. presidential election. Both Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump have talked about what they would do to increase the supply of affordable homes and people’s ability to buy them, though their plans have little in common.

It’s an important issue for the public, too: In a recent Pew Research Center survey, 69% of Americans said they were “very concerned” about the cost of housing, up from 61% in April 2023.

But what counts as an “affordable” home, and how many Americans are struggling to afford a place to live? This analysis tries to answer those questions, using data from U.S. Census Bureau surveys and other sources.

How does housing affordability vary geographically?

Like much else involving real estate, “location, location, location” plays a key role in how housing cost burdens are distributed. That’s especially true in California, according to our analysis of 2023 ACS estimates.

The federal government identifies more than 900 metropolitan and “micropolitan” areas in the United States and Puerto Rico, based on the population of an area’s core city or town. Many of the metropolitan and micropolitan areas with the highest shares of cost-burdened households (i.e., those that spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs) are in California.

What factors contribute to housing being unaffordable?

A lack of housing affordability is the product of multiple factors intersecting in sometimes unpredictable ways. Interest rates, new home construction, population growth, population shifts, rising home prices and rents, disposable incomes, and local economic conditions all affect how easy or difficult it can be to find a home you can afford in a place you want to live.