America’s renter eviction crisis, by the numbers
Approximately 1 in 5 American adult renters are behind on rent.
by ALYSON CLARY | Feb. 18, 2021
On the day of his inauguration, President Joe Biden signed 17 executive orders, memoranda and proclamations. Among them: ordering the CDC to extend a federal moratorium on evictions to March 31, 2021. Still, housing remains precarious for millions of Americans.
The CDC originally instituted the moratorium in early September of last year to fight the spread of COVID-19—after the eviction moratorium that was part of the original CARES act expired on July 31, 2020—and set it to last through December. Prior to Biden’s inauguration, Congress extended the CDC-issued moratorium an additional month.
The need for these measures is no surprise: even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic nearly half of all renters—around 19.9 million households—were considered rent-burdened, spending at least 30% of their income on rent. The spike in unemployment that has accompanied the pandemic has further exacerbated financial pressure on renters.
Even with various state, local and federal moratoria in place, the Eviction Lab currently reports that landlords have filed more than 247,000 evictions over the course of the pandemic in the five states and 27 cities that it is tracking. According to an August 2020 report from the Aspen Institute, the federal eviction moratorium that accompanied the CARES act only protected about 30% of all renters. And a recent article from CityLab notes that eviction filings have risen in many places since the start of the CDC order, often due to uneven interpretation and enforcement of the federal order, and variability in state and local eviction protections.
For many who do qualify for protection under the current federal eviction moratorium, it may only postpone their worries to a later date. Once the moratorium expires, tenants will be responsible for paying back rent and any late fees that accrue.
After the January jobs report recently revealed a stalled economic recovery and as Congress begins to craft the next COVID-19 aid package, the Research Lab decided to examine what the current data tells us about the state of American renters at the start of 2021.
Renters in the Household Pulse Survey
Beginning in April 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau initiated the Household Pulse Survey, an instrument to quickly provide data on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Americans on a range of issues such as education, employment and housing. The survey has continued up to the present, first on a weekly and then a bi-weekly basis.
Week 22 of the Household Pulse Survey is the first published data table to cover responses collected in 2021. According to the survey, 21% of all adult renters are not caught up on last month’s rent payment. And among those who are behind on their rent, 47% say they feel it likely they will be evicted from their house in the next two months.
Among individual states, Louisiana and South Carolina have the highest proportion of households not caught up on last month’s rent, each at slightly over 35%. Those states were closely followed by Delaware, New York and Mississippi.
Americans from a variety of backgrounds are experiencing pandemic-related financial hardship and this comes through in the data. But the data also reveal that certain segments of the population are far more likely to experience housing insecurity than others.
For example, at the beginning of January, Black renters were three times as likely as White renters to report falling behind on rental payments and Latino renters were 2.4 times as likely. In a report from the Aspen Institute on the COVID-19 Eviction Crisis published last August, the authors note that multiple studies of city-level data throughout the country show that people of color compose approximately 80% of those at risk of eviction.
“Renters with children are nearly twice as likely as renters with no children to worry about paying upcoming rent.”
Additionally, 31% of adult renters with children report they are not caught up on the previous month’s rent, making them 2.2 times as likely to be behind on rent compared to those without children. In fact, studies have shown that the presence of children increases the likelihood that a household will have an eviction judgement passed against them.
Survey respondents were also asked to rate their confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent. While response patterns are similar to those of the previous question, the answers reinforce the difficult situation that a large number of renters are in and the anxiety they must live with.
Thirty-one percent of adult renters report they have no confidence or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Among Black renters, 46% have no or slight confidence in making rent—2.2 times as likely as White renters—and 44% of Latino renters respond the same. Adult renters with children (42%), again, are nearly twice as likely as those with no children (23%) to lack confidence in their ability to pay upcoming rent.
We will have to wait and see how the next COVID-19 relief package takes shape as it moves through Congress—both chambers passed a budget resolution on Feb. 5 to initiate the drafting process. President Biden has called for an expansive relief package including $25 billion in rental assistance (with an additional $5 billion for home energy and water costs) and a further extension of the eviction moratorium until Sept. 30. Experts argue that to effectively address the threat of mass evictions, policy makers need to pair an eviction moratorium with some form of rent relief.
Additionally, the moratorium itself is placing very real burdens on small, “mom and pop” landlords who own more than 40% of residential units according to Brookings. Some of these landlords, especially those considered low- to moderate-income, could likely be forced out of business unless they are able to recoup some of their losses incurred while maintaining building upkeep and paying property taxes and mortgages in the absence of income from rent.
Housing instability for renters is one of many consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic that are affecting millions of Americans, including loss of employment and decreased access to higher education, let alone widespread sickness and mortality. Unfortunately, over the course of the pandemic we have seen that certain segments of the population are disproportionately burdened to bear the brunt of these consequences. Here, too, the threat of eviction looms larger for some renters than others, especially for people of color.
-Alyson