Harvard Joint Center for Housing researchers Jennifer Molinsky and Whitney Airgood-Obrycki recently published a blogpost highlighting the rising in housing affordability challenges for older Americans. “Due to both population growth and soaring housing costs, the number of adults age 65 and over struggling to afford housing is growing. The number of cost-burdened older households – those spending more than 30 percent of their incomes on housing – dramatically increased between 2001 and 2016. And while many types of older households are cost burdened, the problem is particularly common among renters, the oldest households, and very-low income older households.
The number of cost-burdened older adult households reached a high of 9.7 million in 2016, up from 6.5 million in 2001. This new peak includes 4.9 million severely cost-burdened households (those spending over half of their income on housing). Some of the increase was due to the growth of 8.2 million older adult households from 2001 to 2016. However, the share of cost-burdened older households also increased from 30 percent in 2001 to 32 percent in 2016. The share of severely cost-burdened rose from about 14.5 to 16 percent over the same period.” Read More…
