Analysis: Local housing rent unattainable for young professionals

The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2022 Out of Reach report highlights how burdensome rising rent costs are for the young Bay Area workforce. For instance, San Joseans must earn over $55/hr to afford a two-bedroom rental home. In a Yahoo! News article, Rose Horowitch unpacks further data on the nationwide housing market, of which cost continues to creep up post-COVID — disproportionately hurting recent college grads and beginning professionals.

The cost of renting a home in the United States is surging and young workers have felt the sharpest pain, many of them taking on additional jobs or roommates to afford housing costs.

Household rents in 2021 jumped 10% from pre-pandemic levels, according to Census Bureau estimates released last week. The figures came as rising healthcare and rental costs pushed U.S. consumer prices up unexpectedly last month.

The data from the bureau’s annual American Community Survey put median U.S. rent at $1,037 in 2021, up from $941 in 2019. Year-over-year increases in the median household rent over the past decade were typically 2% or 3% - one exception was the 5% rise from 2018 to 2019.

Among those affected most are recent college graduates and other new entrants to the workforce, who have little in savings and cannot afford to buy a house.

This article originally appeared in Yahoo! News. Read the whole thing here.

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