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A growing number of older adults are burdened with high housing costs.
Housing Cost Burden
Between 2019 and 2022, rental prices in the U.S. rose an average of 2.6% annually, outpacing wage growth by 169%. Transitioning into retirement during this period of wage stagnation and increasing inflation makes older adults especially vulnerable to economic hardship. Cost-burdened older adults — those living in households that spend more than 30% of their income on housing — may have difficulty affording other basic needs such as health care, food and heating/air conditioning, and are more likely to report having chronic conditions and poor health.
Programs designed to support home maintenance, such as the Older Adults Home Modification Grant Program, the Department of Agriculture's Housing Repair Program and the Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program, play a crucial role in ensuring safety and accessibility so low-income older adults can stay in their homes. The Department of Housing and Urban Development also subsidizes affordable supportive rental housing with services that allow low-income older adults to continue living independently through the Section 202 program.
Changes over time. Nationally, the percentage of cost-burdened households — households with one or more adults age 65 and older for which housing costs are 30% or more of household income — significantly increased 3% from 32.1% to 33.1% between 2021 and 2022. This remains above the Healthy People 2030 target to reduce the proportion of families that spend more than 30% of their income on housing to 25.5%. In 2022, there were nearly 11.8 million households with an adult age 65 or older experiencing housing cost burden, approximately 741,000 more than in 2021.
Between 2021 and 2022, the prevalence of housing cost burden significantly increased in four states: 21% in Montana (25.8% to 31.1%), 14% in Mississippi (22.8% to 25.9%), 8% in Minnesota (30.6% to 33.2%) and 7% in Ohio (27.9% to 29.9%).
Disparities. The prevalence of housing cost burden among households with one or more adults age 65 and older was 2.1 times higher in California (41.8%) than West Virginia (20.3%) in 2022.
