Americans struggling to keep up with sky-high rents: study

Washington

RECORD numbers of US renter households are spending more than 30 per cent of their income, and in many cases more than half their income, on housing costs, according to a study published on Wednesday.

In its biennial report on rental housing, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies said that both lower and moderate income households were overburdened by higher rents, which have been rising 3.5 per cent annually after accounting for inflation.

The lingering effects of the housing market collapse, which have seen the home ownership rate falling to levels last seen in 1965, and better employment prospects for Millennials, have fanned a rental market boom. An ageing population has also …