The first apartment I ever rented, the summer I was 18, set me back $125 a month, plus one third of the utilities. As best as I can remember, my share of the utilities averaged about $30-50 a month, depending on the season. Call it $175 a month for housing, then. At that time I was working at the Woolco department store in Cedar Falls, 40 hours a week, for the princely wage of $3.25 an hour. Call it $500 per month, gross. Let’s say $425 net. So my housing cost me about 30 percent of my income.
At that time I don’t recall seeing that as too onerous – but I was young, single, and had nobody else to feed, clothe, or entertain, and I rapidly worked my way out of that starting point. But today, under the Biden/Harris economy, the Census Bureau tells us that many American renters are paying even more than 30 percent of their income on housing. That’s a problem.
Nearly half of renters in…
