News / Business

Study: US housing crisis worsens

Friday, 01 May 2015 6:44 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 01 May 2015 6:44 PM ]

This Feb. 27, 2015, photo shows a sign advertising a house for rent in Los Angeles. ©AP

More than one in four Americans have to use at least half their family income on housing and utilities, a US study has found.

According to the finding by the non-profit Enterprise Community Partners, the number of such households has jumped 26% to 11.25 million since 2007.

Rental prices have surged at nearly twice the pace of average hourly wages since the end of 2010, according to another study.

The crisis reflects one of the shortcomings of the recovery from the Great Recession where income has failed to match rent increases, the Associated Press reports.

As a result, 2.3 million more families face pressures that leave them perilously close to homelessness, the news agency said.

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

Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies found in a 2013 report that roughly 27% of US renters were devoting half their incomes to rent. Those levels were "unimaginable just a decade ago", the report said.

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