Rent Debt in America: Stabilizing Renters Is Key to Equitable Recovery

Our rent debt dashboard, produced in partnership with the Right to the City Alliance, equips policymakers and advocates with data on the extent and nature of rent debt in their communities to inform policies to eliminate debt and prevent the specter of mass eviction.

By Sarah Treuhaft, Michelle Huang, Alex Ramiller, Justin Scoggins, Abbie Langston, and Jamila Henderson

Mounting rent debt and the potential for mass eviction is one of the most pressing equity issues created by the Covid-19 pandemic. The vast majority of renters who are in debt are low-wage workers —  disproportionately people of color — who’ve suffered job and income losses due to the pandemic. When the federal eviction moratorium expires at the end of this month, the renter households that still hold debt and lack protection by state or local moratoria will be at imminent risk of eviction and homelessness. Allowing this eviction tsunami to take place would be a moral travesty and a policy failure that would deepen inequities at a moment when the federal government has prioritized addressing systemic racism and ensuring an equitable recovery.

To inform policymaking and advocacy to prevent eviction and eliminate rent debt, the National Equity Atlas and the Right to the City Alliance launched a rent debt dashboard in April 2021 with near real-time data on the number and characteristics of renters behind on rent for the US, most states (currently 42 states), and 15 metro areas.* The dashboard also provides estimates of the amount of back rent owed for these geographies, as well as estimates for the number of households with debt and the amount owed for all counties in the states. Drawing current data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey and the University of Southern California Center for Economic and Social Research's Understanding Coronavirus in America survey, the dashboard data is refreshed approximately every two weeks. Find our full methodology here.

Born out of the need for accessible, current data to inform local and state campaigns, the dashboard was produced in partnership with the Right to the City Alliance, a network of community-based organizations working in 45 cities and 26 states to prevent displacement, expand affordable housing, and build just, sustainable cities for all.

This analysis shares key insights from the dashboard, based on the May 26 - June 7 Pulse survey, along with action steps that local, state, and federal policymakers can take to stabilize the people most negatively impacted by the pandemic and facilitate equitable recovery by addressing the challenge of rent debt.

This is an update to our May 25 and April 21 analyses.

Rent debt continues to be a significant issue, with 5.8 million renter households behind on rent.

As of the first week of June 2021, 5.8 million renters — 14 percent of all renter households — were behind on their rent payments. Renters with arrears will be at imminent risk of eviction in the absence of strong eviction moratoria and other renter protections, and the current federal eviction moratorium from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was recently extended one final time and will expire July 31. As a point of comparison, nearly 8 million households lost their homes to foreclosure due to the 2008 financial crisis.

The Pulse survey has been asking the question “Is this household currently caught up on rent payments?” every two weeks since August 2020. Nationally, the current share of renters with debt is down from a high of 19 percent in mid-January, but remains far higher than the pre-pandemic baseline. While data on rent debt is sparse, the 2017 American Housing Survey found that about seven percent of renters were unable to pay some or all of their rent.

The share of renters who are behind on rent is much higher than the national average in some states and metro areas. Alabama has the highest share of renters with arrears (28 percent), and at least 20 percent of renters are behind in the states of Arkansas, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, and South Carolina. New Hampshire and Utah have the lowest shares of renters with debt, at 7 percent.

Among the 15 metros included in the Pulse survey, New York has the highest share of renters with debt (24 percent), followed by Atlanta (21 percent), and Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, and Los Angeles, all at 16 percent. Phoenix has the lowest share of renters in arrears among the 15 metros (8 percent).

Nationally, we estimate that rent debt amounts to about $20 billion.

According to our estimates, households that are behind on rent owe $3,400 on average, for a total of $20 billion nationwide. As this average suggests, the majority of households who are behind owe one or two months of back rent. However, a smaller but not insignificant number of renters have not been able to pay rent for many months and owe much larger amounts. Our analysis of the University of Southern California’s Understanding Coronavirus in America national survey finds that approximately 28 percent are one month behind, 22 percent are two months behind, 15 percent are three months behind, and the remaining 35 percent are more than three months behind.

The average amount owed depends primarily on local housing costs, so it varies significantly across states and metros. Among states, Hawaii has the highest average rent debt per behind-household ($5,600), while Arkansas has the lowest ($2,100). At the metro level, San Francisco and Washington DC have the highest average debts ($5,800 and $5,200, respectively), while Detroit has the lowest average debt by far ($2,500), followed by Phoenix ($3,200).

Our national estimates of rent debt fall somewhere in the middle of existing projections in terms of total debt, and on the lower end in terms of per household amount. In January, Moody’s Analytics projected that 6.3 million renters would owe a total of $33 billion in rent debt by March, at an average of $5,282 per household. Stout Analytics estimated that between two and five million renter households owed between $13 and $24 billion as of January. Both Moody’s and Stout used the Pulse survey to inform their estimates of the number of households behind. Using a very different methodology based on modeling employment losses, income supports, and spending choices at the household level, and not incorporating the Pulse survey data, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimated that 1.8 million renter households would owe $11 billion in rent in March, at approximately $6,100 per household.

With the incipient recovery, the number of renters with debt has declined nationwide since its peak in January, but has remained at 14 percent since late March. Most states and metros are following this trend.

Nationwide, the share of renters with debt trended downward from a high of 19 percent in January to 14 percent in late March, and has held steady at 14 percent for the past couple of months. Nearly all states and metros followed this general downward trend since their peaks. Between January and the beginning of June, the rates of renters behind on rent rose in only 10 states, the District of Columbia, and one metro.

Among states, Georgia and Arkansas saw the biggest spike in arrearages (from 18 to 25 percent behind), followed by Oregon (from nine to 13 percent). Louisiana saw the biggest improvements (from 34 to 18 percent behind).

Among metros, only Atlanta saw an increase (from 15 to 21 percent behind). Philadelphia saw the greatest decrease (from 27 to 13 percent).

The vast majority of those who are behind on rent are low-income households who’ve lost jobs and income during the pandemic.

Today’s rent debt crisis is entirely a consequence of the pandemic’s economic fallout: 68 percent of those who were behind on rent in May had lost employment income at some point during the pandemic, according to the May 12-24 Pulse survey which asked respondents this question. As our other research has shown, low-wage workers, who are disproportionately workers of color, were hardest hit by pandemic job losses and are most likely to suffer from rent debt. Among households with rent debt, 81 percent are low-income (with earnings less than $50,000 per year) and 66 percent are renters of color. The majority (53 percent) are currently unemployed.

Renters have made tremendous sacrifices and tradeoffs to stay current on rent, including foregoing medical care, delaying payment of other bills, eating cheaper (and potentially less healthy) food, and voluntarily moving in with friends and family — increasing risk of Covid-19 exposure while losing their housing stability. One of the most surprising facts in the data is the high share of low-income renters who are paid in full: Among low-income households that lost employment income during the pandemic, 73 percent were not behind on rent as of May (also according to the May 12-24 Pulse survey).* This underscores how paying rent has remained a top priority for all renters throughout the pandemic, despite the moratoria on evictions.

Rent is not the only debt accumulating for renters.

While our analysis focuses on back rent, renters’ pandemic debt crisis extends far beyond their obligations to their landlords. Many renters are borrowing from family and friends or taking on other forms of debt in order to make rent and pay for household expenses. Among households behind on rent, 43 percent borrowed from friends or family to pay rent, compared with just 14 percent of households current on rent. About 30 percent of all renter households, whether behind or current on rent, used a credit card (or some other form of debt) to pay rent. Many are behind on other bills, such as utilities or car payments. A survey of water debt in California found that 1.6 million households owed $1 billion on water bills — $500 on average.

Renters of color have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and are more likely to owe back rent, making them more vulnerable to eviction risk.

In the United States, renters are already a more vulnerable population as a whole: they have little housing security, paltry savings, and few legal protections from exorbitant rent increases or eviction (outside of a few states and cities with strong tenant movements). Historic and continuing housing and lending discrimination, as well as systemic inequities in our labor market, have contributed to large racial inequities in homeownership. Atlas data show that seven in 10 White households own their homes while the majority of Black, Latinx, and multiracial households rent.

The challenge of unaffordable rents and flat wages add to this underlying housing insecurity among renters. Renters were already in crisis when the pandemic began: about a third of White renters and just under half of Black and Latinx renters were both economically insecure (earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level) and rent burdened (paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent). Gender is another important axis: women of color are most likely to be rent burdened, and disproportionately face eviction.

Covid-19 added yet another layer of inequity to these preexisting disparities. Today, 24 percent of Black renters, 17 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander and Latinx renters, and 18 percent of multiracial renters are behind on rent, compared to 9 percent of White renters.

Eliminating Rent Debt is an Equity Imperative and a Moral, Economic, and Public Health Necessity

Today’s rent debt crisis is a microcosm of the wretched inequality of the pandemic: millions of renter households – most of them people of color – now face the burden of owing back rent due to a public health crisis that had extremely concentrated negative economic impacts on low-wage workers. These unequal consequences are not random, but the predictable result of past policies that left millions of families with no savings to draw upon in the face of an economic shock, as well as the failed early policy response to the pandemic. Although the CARES Act provided important unemployment benefits and cash assistance as well as an eviction moratorium that helped many pandemic-impacted renters, undocumented and mixed-status families were ineligible for assistance and the moratorium ended in July, leaving renters unprotected until the CDC enacted its moratorium in early September. Moreover, absent meaningful financial assistance to pay back rent, the moratoria simply delay eviction. Yet, the federal government provided no rent relief until December, nine months into the pandemic.

The magnitude of rent debt is a crisis in and of itself and the leading indicator of a potential eviction tsunami that would be a humanitarian disaster. Rent debt adds a heavy burden onto families who are already financially insecure and struggling during the pandemic, further limiting their choices and creating additional stress. It’s also contributing to the growth of the racial wealth gap: while renters, predominantly people of color, currently hold $20 billion in debt, homeowners, who are predominantly White, saw a $1.9 trillion increase in their home equity from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021 as competition for a constrained supply of homes drove prices up. At a time when racial equity is at the forefront of the policy debate, eliminating rent debt that has unfairly and unequally accrued for people of color should be an urgent priority.

Clearing rent debt is also key to staving off the specter of mass eviction, which would directly harm economically vulnerable families and their communities and have long-term ripple effects throughout our economy. Eviction has significant negative consequences for mental and physical health, educational outcomes, and household finances. Some evicted families and individuals would become homeless, with devastating consequences for long-term health and well-being as well as significant costs for local governments.

The health impacts of eviction and homelessness are even more severe during a pandemic. Research during the pandemic found that states that allowed evictions to proceed had more Covid infections and deaths than those with eviction moratoria. Although the vaccination campaign is in full swing and Covid cases are low in most states, there are hotspots with high infection rates and the longer-term picture remains uncertain.

Forgiving rent debt is also essential to an equitable and people-centered recovery: one in which those hardest-hit by the pandemic can fully participate and thrive.

For an Equitable and Just Recovery, Policymakers Must Clear Rent Debt and Prevent Eviction

Recognizing the catastrophic impact of mass eviction, policymakers have responded, albeit belatedly, by enacting eviction moratoria and establishing rent relief funds. The federal CDC eviction moratorium scheduled to expire last month was extended through July 31, and the American Rescue Plan (ARP) passed in January provided $21.5 billion for rental assistance programs as well as $350 billion in fiscal support for state and local governments, some of which could be allocated toward debt relief. The December 27 coronavirus relief bill also provided $25 billion in funding for rental assistance.

With the federal moratorium expiring in just a few weeks and many state and local emergency rent relief programs supported by the ARP just getting off the ground, there is an urgent need to clear the debts of all tenants in need to prevent mass eviction. Throughout the pandemic, rent relief programs have not been reaching all of those in need. These programs must be structured to meet the scale of the crisis, both to efficiently deliver resources and to ensure that resources are distributed equitably, reaching the low-income renters of color who were both hardest hit by the pandemic and already housing insecure before Covid-19. Renters also need stronger eviction protections, including access to free legal assistance and eviction diversion programs. States and localities should extend their eviction moratoria until the pandemic rent debt crisis has subsided.

As they design rent relief programs, local and state policymakers should implement policies that adhere to the following equitable, common sense principles:

  • No renter, regardless of immigration status, should be evicted or burdened with years of debt for rent that they were unable to pay during the pandemic.
  • Rent debt due to the pandemic should be fully forgiven and should not be conditioned on landlords’ acceptance of funds or participation in programs.
  • Financial assistance to landlords should address the fiscal needs of landlords in danger of going out of business due to lost rent, with a particular focus on keeping small community-based landlords and nonprofit affordable housing operators solvent, rather than attempting to achieve full rent replacement for all landlords. California’s program, negotiated with the state’s landlord association, provides an example: landlords receive 80 percent of back rent owed.
  • Local municipalities’ authority to pass stronger eviction and debt protection laws should be preserved.
  • Landlords should continue to fulfill their legal obligations to tenants regardless of whether they receive assistance, including the duty to maintain habitable premises, refrain from harassment and retaliation against tenants, and respecting tenants’ legal rights.

    For more local policy ideas and examples, see https://ourhomesourhealth.org

    * The number of renter respondents to the Pulse survey for Delaware, Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming was insufficient to produce reliable data to include in the dashboard.

    Call for Research Proposals: Racial Equity Analysis of Policies to Regulate Big Tech

    PolicyLink seeks research proposals for short white papers or policy analyses to inform a framework we are developing to advance racial equity in tech policy.

    The fundamental business model underlying Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and other stalwarts of the digital/platform economy has come up for public and policy debate. Reliant upon the ad-based internet, user data collection at scale, algorithms to track and incentivize user behavior, and concentration of market power to dominate competitors, policymakers are concerned about negative consequences of this business model (or models) on our economy and democracy, and are proposing stronger regulation to ensure competitiveness, privacy, and security.

    Racial equity is not yet a facet of this policy debate – but it must be. Systemic racism and inequities in the United States render communities of color particularly vulnerable to the potential harms of tech monopoly power for consumers, workers, and small business owners. Meanwhile, people of color are egregiously underrepresented in Big Tech as producers, owners, suppliers, and employees, and advocates for racial equity are not central voices in tech regulatory debates.

    Recognizing the need to bring a racial equity analysis into this debate, PolicyLink is developing a framework for assessing the racial equity implications of tech regulatory policy and creating an actionable toolkit to equip racial equity and civil rights advocates with information they can use to weigh in on the tech regulation debate.

    PolicyLink is seeking research proposals for short white papers or policy analyses to inform this framework. We are interested in supporting research that addresses the potential impacts of tech regulation on racial equity outcomes in four arenas: 1) Worker Power, Worker Voice, and Good Jobs; 2) Ownership, Entrepreneurship, and the Racial Wealth Gap; 3) Equitable Access to Goods, Services, and Information; and 4) Democracy and Governance.

    To submit a research proposal, please submit a brief document (1-2 pages) sharing how you would address the research question(s) most relevant to your work and expertise, along with your current CV and two writing samples using this form.

    Timeline and Process

    • Proposals are due August 6, 2021.
    • Selected researchers will be notified by August 20, 2021.
    • Final papers are due September 30, 2021.
    • Given the short research timeframe, these papers would be for internal use initially to inform the framework; however, we hope to further develop these papers to be published with the toolkit on a longer timeline.
    • Researchers selected for the white papers will receive a stipend of $8,000 to $10,000 (depending on the total number of papers selected). This stipend is for the delivery of the interally-focused white paper/policy brief.

    Research Themes and Questions

    Worker Power, Worker Voice, and Good Jobs

    Through their outsized power over labor markets, Big Tech companies are shaping the future of work. Many of the jobs that power these companies – from content monitors to mechanical turk workers to Foxconn employees – take place under precarious conditions with minimal labor rights, low wages, and extreme surveillance technology. Big Tech often relies on platforms or multiple levels of subcontracting for these positions, which can prevent worker organizing and employer accountability. Low-income workers and workers of color, both inside and outside the US, are disproportionately impacted by these labor market conditions. Research questions in this topic area include:

    1. How would anti-monopoly regulation aimed at large tech companies affect low wage workers and/or access to good jobs? What are the different positive and negative racial equity impacts of different regulatory proposals? What might be the racial equity impacts of shifting from the consumer welfare standard to the abuse of dominance standard in antitrust regulation?

    2. How do algorithmic harms from automated management, worker surveillance, and automated recruitment, retention, and termination compound monopolistic harms? How should legislation/regulation account for these intersecting harms?

    3. How do alternative ownership and governance models such as cooperatives, worker-owned data, and data trusts compare to the current tech business model in terms of potential racial equity impacts?

    Ownership, Entrepreneurship, and the Racial Wealth Gap

    Amidst the gaping racial wealth gap, how does the Big Tech business model (or models) impact the accumulation of assets and wealth for people of color through business ownership and growth? Some argue that tools and products created by Big Tech under the current business model are central to small business success. Others claim that the ad-based model and scale prevent smaller tech businesses from becoming profitable. Lawmakers and advocates have also accused Big Tech of other anti-competitive behavior, such as simultaneous marketplace participation and ownership, which could have outsized negative impacts on emerging people-of-color-owned enterprises. Research questions in this topic area include:

    1. How might anti-monopoly legislation benefit and/or inadvertently harm the ability of people of color to become entrepreneurs or grow their small businesses?

    2. How does the Big Tech business model and the platform economy impact BIPOC entrepreneurs including considerations for business opportunities along the supply chain?

    3. How do tech business models exacerbate the racial wealth gap and what tech policy and regulatory approaches would help to close the racial wealth gap?

    Equitable Access to Goods, Services, and Information

    With its ownership of our digital infrastructure, Big Tech has increasing control over key goods and services, from the news and our social networks to cell phones and home goods. Many have noted that this control, which is at the center of their business model, has led to inequitable outcomes for communities of color. During the 2020 election, people of color were more likely to receive fake stories on their newsfeed. When using services that rely on dynamic pricing, people of color often receive higher rates than their White counterparts. Online ad-targeting practices have repeatedly faced scrutiny for discriminating against users of color. Critics insist that together, these practices create an inequitable internet in which access to goods and services is determined by race. Research questions in this topic area include:

    1. How might proposed approaches to modifying section 230 improve or negatively impact equitable access to information in the platform economy?

    2. What are the racial equity impacts of current content moderation practices and how might this inform revisions to Section 230?

    3. How would alternatives to the ad-based business model, such as a subscription-based model or public utilities model, positively or negatively affect racial equity outcomes?

    Democracy and Governance

    Beyond the important issue of misinformation and politics described in the previous topic area, might tech regulation impact equitable governance and democratic participation? While this arena is less researched, there is a strong connection between technology and governance, or what some have described as “the algorithmic state.” Big Tech’s business models rely heavily on government contracts – the majority of which are with law-enforcement and military-related agencies such as ICE and the Department of Defense. The use of Big Tech’s products may intensify the surveillance and harm of communities of color that these agencies perpetuate. Tech companies are also beginning to assist with automating other aspects of government services, such as means testing for public services, could place lower-wealth people at risk of discrimination, exclusion, and data extraction. Research questions in this topic area include:

    1. What are the racial equity impacts of Big Tech on democratic participation and equitable governance? Would proposed regulations address these impacts? What policies/regulations are desirable?

    Rent Debt in America: Stabilizing Renters Is Key to Equitable Recovery

    Our rent debt dashboard, produced in partnership with the Right to the City Alliance, equips policymakers and advocates with data on the extent and nature of rent debt in their communities to inform policies to eliminate debt and prevent the specter of mass eviction. 

    By Sarah Treuhaft, Jamila Henderson, Michelle Huang, Alex Ramiller, and Justin Scoggins

    Mounting rent debt and the potential for mass eviction is one of the most pressing equity issues created by the Covid-19 pandemic. The vast majority of renters who are in debt are low-wage workers —  disproportionately people of color — who’ve suffered job and income losses due to the pandemic. Without sufficient eviction protection, debt relief, and financial support, these Covid-impacted renters will be left behind — deepening inequities at a moment when the federal government has prioritized addressing systemic racism and ensuring an equitable recovery.

    To inform the national policy debate, as well as local and state policymaking and advocacy, in April 2021, the National Equity Atlas and the Right to the City Alliance launched a rent debt dashboard with near real-time data on the number and characteristics of renters behind on rent for the US, 41 states, and 15 metro areas.* The dashboard provides estimates of the amount of back rent owed for these geographies, as well as estimates for the number of households with debt and the amount owed for all counties in the 41 states. Drawing current data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey and the University of Southern California Center for Economic and Social Research's Understanding Coronavirus in America survey, the dashboard data is refreshed approximately every two weeks. Find our full methodology here.

    Born out of the need for accessible, current data to inform local and state campaigns, the dashboard was produced in partnership with the Right to the City Alliance, a network of community-based organizations working in 45 cities and 26 states to prevent displacement, expand affordable housing, and build just, sustainable cities for all.

    This analysis shares key insights from the dashboard, based on the April 14-26 Pulse survey, as well as action steps that local, state, and federal policymakers can take to stabilize the people most negatively impacted by the pandemic and facilitate equitable recovery by addressing the challenge of rent debt head-on.

    Rent debt continues to be a significant issue, with 5.8 million renter households behind on rent.

    As of the end of April 2021, 5.8 million renters – 14 percent of all renter households – were behind on their rent payments. Renters with arrears will be at imminent risk of eviction in the absence of strong eviction moratoria and other renter protections, and the current federal eviction moratorium from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is scheduled to expire June 30. As a point of comparison, nearly 8 million households lost their homes to foreclosure due to the 2008 financial crisis.

    The Pulse survey has been asking the question “Is this household currently caught up on rent payments?” every two weeks since August 2020. Nationally, the current share of renters with debt is down from a high of 19 percent in mid-January, but remains far higher than the pre-pandemic baseline. While data on rent debt is sparse, the 2017 American Housing Survey found that about seven percent of renters were unable to pay some or all of their rent. 

    The share of renters who are behind on rent is much higher than the national average in some states and metro areas. Alabama has the highest share of renters with arrears (29 percent), and at least 20 percent of renters are behind in the states of Arkansas, South Carolina, Maryland, and New Jersey. Rhode Island has the lowest share of renters with debt (2 percent) followed by Utah (5 percent).

    Among the 15 metros included in the Pulse survey, Atlanta has the highest share of renters with debt (24 percent), followed by Miami (20 percent), New York City and San Francisco (19 percent), and Washington DC (18 percent). Phoenix has the lowest share of renters in arrears among the 15 metros (7 percent).

     

    Nationally, we estimate that rent debt amounts to about $19 billion.

    According to our estimates, households that are behind on rent owe $3,200 on average, for a total of $18.6 billion nationwide. As this average suggests, the majority of households who are behind owe one or two months of back rent. However, a smaller but not insignificant number of renters have not been able to pay rent for many months and owe much larger amounts. Our analysis of the University of Southern California’s Understanding Coronavirus in America national survey finds that 27 percent are one month behind, 27 percent are two months behind, 10 percent are three months behind, and the remaining 36 percent are more than three months behind.

    The average amount owed depends primarily on local housing costs, so it varies significantly across states and metros. Among states, Hawaii has the highest average rent debt per behind household ($5,200), while Arkansas has the lowest ($2,000). At the metro level, San Francisco and Washington DC have the highest average debts ($5,300 and $4,800, respectively), while Detroit has the lowest average debt by far ($2,400), followed by Atlanta ($2,900). 

    Our national estimates of rent debt fall somewhere in the middle of existing projections in terms of total debt, and on the lower end in terms of per household amount. In January, Moody’s Analytics projected that 6.3 million renters would owe a total of $33 billion in rent debt by March, at an average of $5,282 per household. Stout Analytics estimated that between two and five million renter households owed between $13 and $24 billion as of January. Both Moody’s and Stout used the Pulse survey to inform their estimates of the number of households behind. Using a very different methodology based on modeling employment losses, income supports, and spending choices at the household level, and not incorporating the Pulse survey data, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimated that 1.8 million renter households would owe $11 billion in rent in March, at approximately $6,100 per household. 

    With the incipient recovery, the number of renters with debt is declining nationwide, but some states and metros saw increases from March to April.

    Nationwide, the share of renters with debt is trending downward from a high of 19 percent in January 2021 to 14 percent at the end of April. Nearly all states and metros are following this general downward trend since their peaks. However, when we look at the most rencent month of data, we see that some communities are seeing declines while others are seeing increases. Between the end of March and the end of April, rates of renters behind rose in 20 states and seven metros.

    Among states, Tennessee saw the biggest spike in arrearages (from nine to 20 percent behind), followed by Arkansas (from 14 to 23 percent), and Hawaii (from eight to 16 percent). West Virginia and Mississippi saw the biggest improvements (from 31 to 13 percent behind).

    Among metros, Atlanta saw the largest increases (from 11 to 24 percent behind). Riverside saw the greatest decrease (from 22 to eight percent).

    The vast majority of those who are behind on rent are low-income households who’ve lost jobs and income during the pandemic.

    Today’s rent debt crisis is entirely a consequence of the pandemic’s economic fallout: 68 percent of those who are behind on rent lost employment income at some point during the pandemic. As our other research has shown, low-wage workers, who are disproportionately workers of color, were hardest hit by pandemic job losses and are most likely to suffer from rent debt. Among households with rent debt, 78 percent are low-income (with earnings less than $50,000 per year) and 64 percent are renters of color. The majority (54 percent) are currently unemployed.

    Renters have made tremendous sacrifices and tradeoffs to stay current on rent, including foregoing medical care, delaying payment of other bills, eating cheaper (and potentially less healthy) food, and voluntarily moving in with friends and family — increasing risk of Covid-19 exposure while losing their housing stability. One of the most surprising facts in the data is the high share of low-income renters who are paid in full: Among low-income households that lost employment income during the pandemic, 73 percent are not behind on rent. This underscores how paying rent has remained a top priority for all renters throughout the pandemic, despite the moratoria on evictions.

    Rent is not the only debt accumulating for renters.

    While our analysis focuses on back rent, renters’ pandemic debt crisis extends far beyond their obligations to their landlords. Many renters are borrowing from family and friends or taking on other forms of debt in order to make rent and pay for household expenses. Among households behind on rent, 41 percent borrowed from friends or family to pay rent, compared with just 15 percent of households current on rent. About 30 percent of all renter households, whether behind or current on rent, used a credit card (or some other form of debt) to pay rent. Many are behind on other bills, such as utilities or car payments. A survey of water debt in California found that 1.6 million households owed $1 billion on water bills — $500 on average.

    Renters of color have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and are more likely to owe back rent, making them more vulnerable to eviction risk.

    In the United States, renters are already a more vulnerable population as a whole: they have little housing security, paltry savings, and few legal protections from exorbitant rent increases or eviction (outside of a few states and cities with strong tenant movements). Historic and continuing housing and lending discrimination, as well as systemic inequities in our labor market, have contributed to large racial inequities in homeownership. Atlas data shows that seven in 10 White households own their homes while the majority of Black, Latinx, and multiracial households rent. 

    The challenge of unaffordable rents and flat wages add to this underlying housing insecurity among renters. Renters were already in crisis when the pandemic began: about a third of White renters and just under half of Black and Latinx renters were both economically insecure (earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level) and rent burdened (paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent). Gender is another important axis: women of color are most likely to be rent burdened, and disproportionately face eviction.

    Covid-19 added yet another layer of inequity to these preexisting disparities. Today, 10 percent of White renters are behind on rent, compared to 20 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander renters, 20 percent of Latinx renters, and 22 percent of Black renters.

    Eliminating Rent Debt is an Equity Imperative and a Moral, Economic, and Public Health Necessity

    Today’s rent debt crisis is a microcosm of the wretched inequality of the pandemic: millions of renter households – most of them people of color – now face the burden of owing back rent due to a public health crisis that had extremely concentrated negative economic impacts on low-wage workers. These unequal consequences are not random, but the predictable result of past policies that left millions of families with no savings to draw upon in the face of an economic shock, as well as the failed early policy response to the pandemic. Although the CARES Act provided important unemployment benefits and cash assistance as well as an eviction moratorium that helped many pandemic-impacted renters, undocumented and mixed-status families were ineligible for assistance and the moratorium ended in July, leaving renters unprotected until the CDC enacted its moratorium in early September. Moreover, absent meaningful financial assistance to pay back rent, the moratoria simply delay eviction. Yet, the federal government provided no rent relief until December, nine months into the pandemic.

    The magnitude of rent debt is a crisis in and of itself and the leading indicator of a potential eviction tsunami that would be a humanitarian disaster. Rent debt adds a heavy burden onto families who are already financially insecure and struggling during the pandemic, further limiting their choices and creating additional stress. It’s also contributing to the growth of the racial wealth gap: while renters, predominantly people of color, currently hold $20 billion in debt, homeowners, who are predominantly White, saw a $1.5 trillion increase in their home equity between October 2019 and October 2020 as competition for a constrained supply of homes drove prices up. At a time when racial equity is at the forefront of the policy debate, eliminating rent debt that has unfairly and unequally accrued for people of color should be an urgent priority.

    Clearing rent debt is also key to staving off the specter of mass eviction, which would directly harm economically vulnerable families and their communities and have long-term ripple effects throughout our economy. Eviction has significant negative consequences for mental and physical health, educational outcomes, and household finances. Some evicted families and individuals would become homeless, with devastating consequences for long-term health and well-being as well as significant costs for local governments. 

    The health impacts of eviction and homelessness are even more severe during a pandemic. Research during the pandemic found that states that allowed evictions to proceed had more Covid infections and deaths than those with eviction moratoria. Although the vaccination campaign is in full swing and Covid cases are low in most states, there are hotspots with high infection rates and the longer-term picture remains uncertain.

    Forgiving rent debt is also essential to an equitable and people-centered recovery: one in which those hardest-hit by the pandemic can fully participate and thrive.

    For an Equitable and Just Recovery, Policymakers Must Clear Rent Debt and Prevent Eviction

    Recognizing the catastrophic impact of mass eviction, policymakers have responded, albeit belatedly, by enacting eviction moratoria and establishing rent relief funds. The federal CDC eviction moratorium scheduled to expire last month was extended through June 30th, and the American Rescue Plan passed in January provided $25.1 billion for rental assistance programs as well as $350 billion in fiscal support for state and local governments, some of which could be allocated toward debt relief. The December 27 coronavirus relief bill also provided $25 billion in funding for rental assistance. 

    These are important steps, and more must be done to ensure that all struggling renters emerge from this crisis safely in their homes with no debt. The eviction moratorium is far from airtight: many evictions are still proceeding, and renters need stronger protections. In addition, rent relief programs are not reaching all of those with need; these programs must be structured to meet the scale of the crisis, both to efficiently deliver resources and to ensure that resources are distributed equitably, reaching the low-income renters of color hardest hit by the pandemic who were already housing insecure before Covid-19.

    As they design rent relief programs, local and state policymakers should implement policies that adhere to the following equitable, common sense principles: 

    • No renter, regardless of immigration status, should be evicted or burdened with years of debt for rent that they were unable to pay during the pandemic.

    • Rent debt due to the pandemic should be fully forgiven and should not be conditioned on landlords’ acceptance of funds or participation in programs.

    • Financial assistance to landlords should address the fiscal needs of landlords in danger of going out of business due to lost rent, with a particular focus on keeping small community-based landlords and nonprofit affordable housing operators solvent, rather than attempting to achieve full rent replacement for all landlords. California’s program, negotiated with the state’s landlord association, provides an example: landlords receive 80 percent of back rent owed.

    • Local municipalities’ authority to pass stronger eviction and debt protection laws should be preserved.

    • Landlords should continue to fulfill their legal obligations to tenants regardless of whether they receive assistance, including the duty to maintain habitable premises, refrain from harassment and retaliation against tenants, and respecting tenants’ legal rights. 

    For more local policy ideas and examples, see https://ourhomesourhealth.org

    * The number of renter respondents to the Pulse survey for Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Carolina South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming was insufficient to produce reliable data to include in the dashboard.

    Rent Debt in America: Stabilizing Renters Is Key to Equitable Recovery

    Our new rent debt dashboard, produced in partnership with the Right to the City Alliance, equips policymakers and advocates with data on the extent and nature of rent debt in their communities to inform policies to eliminate debt and prevent the specter of mass eviction. 

    By Sarah Treuhaft, Jamila Henderson, Michelle Huang, Alex Ramiller, and Justin Scoggins

    Mounting rent debt and the potential for mass eviction is one of the most pressing equity issues created by the Covid-19 pandemic. The vast majority of renters who are in debt are low-wage workers —  disproportionately people of color — who’ve suffered job and income losses due to the pandemic. Without sufficient eviction protection, debt relief, and financial support, these Covid-impacted renters will be left behind — deepening inequities at a moment when the federal government has prioritized addressing systemic racism and ensuring an equitable recovery.

    To inform the national policy debate, as well as local and state policymaking and advocacy, the National Equity Atlas and the Right to the City Alliance have launched a new rent debt dashboard with near real-time data on the number and characteristics of renters behind on rent for the US, 45 states, and 15 metro areas.* The dashboard provides estimates of the amount of back rent owed for these geographies, as well as estimates for the number of households with debt and the amount owed for all counties in the 45 states. Drawing current data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey and the University of Southern California Center for Economic and Social Research's Understanding Coronavirus in America survey, the dashboard data will be refreshed approximately every two weeks. Find our full methodology here.

    Born out of the need for accessible, current data to inform local and state campaigns, the dashboard was produced in partnership with the Right to the City Alliance, a network of community-based organizations working in 45 cities and 26 states to prevent displacement, expand affordable housing, and build just, sustainable cities for all.

    This analysis shares key insights from the dashboard, based on the March 17-29 Pulse survey, as well as action steps that local, state, and federal policymakers can take to stabilize the people most negatively impacted by the pandemic and facilitate equitable recovery by addressing the challenge of rent debt head-on.  

    Rent debt continues to be a significant issue, with millions of renters — 14 percent of all renter households — currently behind on rent.

    As of the end of March 2021, 5.7 million renters – 14 percent of all renter households – were behind on their rent payments, placing them at risk of eviction in the absence of strong eviction moratoria and other renter protections. For comparison, nearly 8 million households lost their homes to foreclosure due to the 2008 financial crisis.

    The Pulse survey has been asking the question “Is this household currently caught up on rent payments?” every two weeks since August 2020. Nationally, the current share of renters with debt is down from a high of 19 percent in mid-January, but remains far higher than the pre-pandemic baseline. While data on rent debt is sparse, the 2017 American Housing Survey found that about seven percent of renters were unable to pay some or all of their rent. 

    Among states, the current share of renters with debt ranges from a high of 22 percent in Alabama to a low of 6 percent in both Maine and Utah. Among the 15 metros included in the Pulse survey, the share behind ranges from a high of 23 percent in Miami to a low of 8 percent in Boston.

    Nationally, we estimate that rent debt amounts to about $20 billion.

    According to our estimates, households that are behind on rent owe $3,400 on average, for a total of $19.75 billion nationwide. As this average suggests, the majority of households that are behind owe one or two months of back rent. However, a smaller but not insignificant number of renters have not been able to pay rent for many months and owe much larger amounts. Our analysis of the University of Southern California’s Understanding Coronavirus in America national survey finds that 25 percent are one month behind and 28 percent are two months behind, 12.5 percent are three months behind, about 29 percent are between four  and 12 months behind, and 5.5 percent have not paid rent for the entire pandemic. 

    The average amount owed depends primarily on local housing costs, so it varies significantly across states and metros. Among states, Hawaii has the highest average rent debt per behind household ($5,500), while Arkansas has the lowest ($2,100). At the metro level, San Francisco and Washington DC have the highest average debts ($5,300 and $5,100, respectively), while Detroit has the lowest average debt by far ($2,500), followed by Atlanta ($3,100). 

    Our national estimates of rent debt fall somewhere in the middle of existing projections in terms of total debt, and on the lower end in terms of per household amount. In January, Moody’s Analytics projected that 6.3 million renters would owe a total of $33 billion in rent debt by March, at an average of $5,282 per household. Stout Analytics estimated that between two and five million renter households owed between $13 and $24 billion as of January. Both Moody’s and Stout used the Pulse survey to inform their estimates of the number of households behind. Using a very different methodology based on modeling employment losses, income supports, and spending choices at the household level, and not incorporating the Pulse survey data, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimated that 1.8 million renter households would owe $11 billion in rent in March, at approximately $6,100 per household. 

    With the reopening of the economy, the number of renters with debt appears to be declining overall; however, it is increasing in some states and regions.

    Nationwide, the share of renters with debt appears to be trending downward from a high of 19 percent in January 2021. Nearly all states and metros are following this pattern, or generally holding stable, but there are a few exceptions. The rates of renters with arrears have been increasing since late-February in Alaska, California, Florida, Nevada, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Among metros, Detroit, Miami, Riverside, and Seattle are seeing increasing numbers of renters with debt in this recent time period. It will be important to keep a close watch on these places in the coming weeks to assess the situation — particularly in Alaska, Florida, Miami, and Riverside, where rates of behind renter households are at or above 20 percent and have been rising over the past month. 

    The vast majority of those who are behind on rent are low-income households who’ve lost jobs and income during the pandemic.

    Today’s rent debt crisis is entirely a consequence of the pandemic’s economic fallout: 76 percent of those who are behind on rent lost employment income at some point during the pandemic. As our other research has shown, low-wage workers, who are disproportionately workers of color, were hardest hit by pandemic job losses, and it is these same households that are most likely to suffer from rent debt. Among households with rent debt, 78 percent are low-income (with earnings less than $50,000 per year) and 63 percent are renters of color. The majority (55 percent) are currently unemployed.

    Renters have made tremendous sacrifices and tradeoffs to stay current on rent, including foregoing medical care, delaying payment of other bills, eating cheaper (and potentially less healthy) food, and voluntarily moving in with friends and family — increasing risk of Covid-19 exposure while losing their housing stability. One of the most surprising facts in the data is the high share of low-income renters who are paid in full: Among low-income households that lost employment income during the pandemic, 73 percent are not behind on rent. This underscores how paying rent has remained a top priority for all renters throughout the pandemic, despite the moratoria on evictions.

    Rent is not the only debt accumulating for renters.

    While our analysis focuses on back rent, renters’ pandemic debt crisis extends far beyond their obligations to their landlords. Many renters are borrowing from family and friends or taking on other forms of debt in order to make rent and pay for household expenses. Among households behind on rent, 44 percent borrowed from friends or family to pay rent, compared with just 16 percent of households current on rent. About 30 percent of all renter households, whether behind or current on rent, used a credit card (or some other form of debt) to pay rent. Many are behind on other bills, such as utilities or car payments. A survey of water debt in California found that 1.6 million households owed $1 billion on water bills — $500 on average.

    Renters of color have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and are more likely to owe back rent, making them more vulnerable to eviction risk.

    In the United States, renters are already a more vulnerable population as a whole: they have little housing security, paltry savings, and few legal protections from exorbitant rent increases or eviction (outside of a few states and cities with strong tenant movements). Historic and continuing housing and lending discrimination, as well as systemic inequities in our labor market, have contributed to large racial inequities in homeownership. Atlas data shows that seven in 10 White households own their homes while the majority of Black, Latinx, and multiracial households rent. 

    The challenge of unaffordable rents and flat wages add to this underlying housing insecurity among renters. Renters were already in crisis when the pandemic began: about a third of White renters and just under half of Black and Latinx renters were both economically insecure (earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level) and rent burdened (paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent). Gender is another important axis: women of color are most likely to be rent burdened, and disproportionately face eviction.

    Covid-19 added yet another layer of inequity to these preexisting disparities. Today, 11 percent of White renters are behind on rent, compared to 18 percent of Asian renters, 20 percent of Latinx renters, and 26 percent of Black renters.

    Eliminating Rent Debt is an Equity Imperative and a Moral, Economic, and Public Health Necessity

    Today’s rent debt crisis is a microcosm of the wretched inequality of the pandemic: millions of renter households – most of them people of color – now face the burden of owing back rent due to a public health crisis that had extremely concentrated negative economic impacts on low-wage workers. These unequal consequences are not random, but the predictable result of past policies that left millions of families with no savings to draw upon in the face of an economic shock, as well as the failed early policy response to the pandemic. Although the CARES Act provided important unemployment benefits and cash assistance as well as an eviction moratorium that helped many pandemic-impacted renters, undocumented and mixed-status families were ineligible for assistance and the moratorium ended in July, leaving renters unprotected until the CDC enacted its moratorium in early September. Moreover, absent meaningful financial assistance to pay back rent, the moratoria simply delay eviction. Yet, the federal government provided no rent relief until December, nine months into the pandemic.

    The magnitude of rent debt is a crisis in and of itself and the leading indicator of a potential eviction tsunami that would be a humanitarian disaster. Rent debt adds a heavy burden onto families who are already financially insecure and struggling during the pandemic, further limiting their choices and creating additional stress. It’s also contributing to the growth of the racial wealth gap: while renters, predominantly people of color, currently hold $20 billion in debt, homeowners, who are predominantly White, saw a $1.5 trillion increase in their home equity between October 2019 and October 2020 as competition for a constrained supply of homes drove prices up. At a time when racial equity is at the forefront of the policy debate, eliminating rent debt that has unfairly and unequally accrued for people of color should be an urgent priority.

    Clearing rent debt is also key to staving off the specter of mass eviction, which would directly harm economically vulnerable families and their communities and have long-term ripple effects throughout our economy. Eviction has significant negative consequences for mental and physical health, educational outcomes, and household finances. Some evicted families and individuals would become homeless, with devastating consequences for long-term health and well-being as well as significant costs for local governments. 

    The health impacts of eviction and homelessness are even more severe during a pandemic. Research during the pandemic found that states that allowed evictions to proceed had more Covid infections and deaths than those with eviction moratoria. Although the vaccination campaign is in full swing and Covid cases are low in most states, there are hotspots with high infection rates and the longer-term picture remains uncertain.

    Forgiving rent debt is also essential to an equitable and people-centered recovery: one in which those hardest-hit by the pandemic can fully participate and thrive.

    To Build Back Better, Policymakers Must Clear Rent Debt and Prevent Eviction

    Recognizing the catastrophic impact of mass eviction, policymakers have responded, albeit belatedly, by enacting eviction moratoria and establishing rent relief funds. The federal CDC eviction moratorium scheduled to expire last month was extended through June 30th, and the American Rescue Plan passed in January provided $25.1 billion for rental assistance programs as well as $350 billion in fiscal support for state and local governments, some of which could be allocated toward debt relief. The December 27 coronavirus relief bill also provided $25 billion in funding for rental assistance. 

    These are important steps, and more must be done to ensure that all struggling renters emerge from this crisis safely in their homes with no debt. The eviction moratorium is far from airtight: many evictions are still proceeding, and renters need stronger protections. In addition, rent relief programs are not reaching all of those with need; these programs must be structured to meet the scale of the crisis, both to efficiently deliver resources and to ensure that resources are distributed equitably, reaching the low-income renters of color hardest hit by the pandemic who were already housing insecure before Covid-19.

    As they design rent relief programs, local and state policymakers should implement policies that adhere to the following equitable, common sense principles: 

    • No renter, regardless of immigration status, should be evicted or burdened with years of debt for rent that they were unable to pay during the pandemic.

    • Rent debt due to the pandemic should be fully forgiven and should not be conditioned on landlords’ acceptance of funds or participation in programs.

    • Financial assistance to landlords should address the fiscal needs of landlords in danger of going out of business due to lost rent, with a particular focus on keeping small community-based landlords and nonprofit affordable housing operators solvent, rather than attempting to achieve full rent replacement for all landlords. California’s program, negotiated with the state’s landlord association, provides an example: landlords receive 80 percent of back rent owed.

    • Local municipalities’ authority to pass stronger eviction and debt protection laws should be preserved.

    • Landlords should continue to fulfill their legal obligations to tenants regardless of whether they receive assistance, including the duty to maintain habitable premises, refrain from harassment and retaliation against tenants, and respecting tenants’ legal rights. 

    For more local policy ideas and examples, see https://ourhomesourhealth.org

    * The number of renter respondents to the Pulse survey for Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming was insufficient to produce reliable data to include in the dashboard.

    Rent Debt in America: Stabilizing Renters Is Key to Equitable Recovery

    Our rent debt dashboard, produced in partnership with the Right to the City Alliance, equips policymakers and advocates with data on the extent and nature of rent debt in their communities to inform policies to eliminate debt and prevent the specter of mass eviction.

    By Sarah Treuhaft, Michelle Huang, Alex Ramiller, Justin Scoggins, Abbie Langston, and Jamila Henderson

    Mounting rent debt and the potential for mass eviction is one of the most pressing equity issues created by the Covid-19 pandemic. The vast majority of renters who are in debt are low-wage workers — disproportionately people of color — who’ve suffered job and income losses due to the pandemic. As of August 3rd, the federal eviction moratorium was temporarily extended to October 3rd for a more narrow subset of renters. While this extended order will cover the majority of renter households, when the order expires at the beginning of October, the renter households that still hold debt and lack protection by state or local moratoria will be at imminent risk of eviction and homelessness. Allowing this eviction tsunami to take place would be a moral travesty and a policy failure that would deepen inequities at a moment when the federal government has prioritized addressing systemic racism and ensuring an equitable recovery.

    To inform policymaking and advocacy to prevent eviction and eliminate rent debt, the National Equity Atlas and the Right to the City Alliance launched a rent debt dashboard in April 2021 with near real-time data on the number and characteristics of renters behind on rent for the US, most states (currently 40 states), and 15 metro areas.* The dashboard also provides estimates of the amount of back rent owed for these geographies, as well as estimates for the number of households with debt and the amount owed for all counties in the states. Drawing current data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey and the University of Southern California Center for Economic and Social Research's Understanding Coronavirus in America survey, the dashboard data is refreshed approximately every two weeks. Find our full methodology here.

    Born out of the need for accessible, current data to inform local and state campaigns, the dashboard was produced in partnership with the Right to the City Alliance, a network of community-based organizations working in 45 cities and 26 states to prevent displacement, expand affordable housing, and build just, sustainable cities for all.

    This analysis shares key insights from the dashboard, based on the June 23 - July 5 Pulse survey, along with action steps that local, state, and federal policymakers can take to stabilize the people most negatively impacted by the pandemic and facilitate equitable recovery by addressing the challenge of rent debt.

    This is an update to our April 21, May 25, and July 7 analyses. We will be updating our dashboard and this analysis after the August 11 Pulse data release.

    Rent debt continues to be a significant issue, with 6.4 million renter households behind on rent.

    As of the first week of July 2021 6.4 million renters — 15 percent of all renter households — were behind on their rent payments. The federal eviction moratorium from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enacted in September 2020 provided these renters with some protection from eviction but will expire on October 3. And even now, the temporary eviction moratorium order does not apply to all renter households who might be at risk. A few states and cities still have moratoria banning eviction for nonpayment of rent. However, most renters with arrears live in the vast majority of states and cities that do not have moratoria and they are at imminent risk of eviction and homelessness. As a point of comparison, nearly 8 million households lost their homes to foreclosure due to the 2008 financial crisis.

    The Pulse survey has been asking the question “Is this household currently caught up on rent payments?” every two weeks since August 2020. Nationally, the current share of renters with debt is down from a high of 19 percent in mid-January, but remains far higher than the pre-pandemic baseline. While data on rent debt is sparse, the 2017 American Housing Survey found that about seven percent of renters were unable to pay some or all of their rent.

    South Carolina and Georgia have the highest share of renters with arrears among the 40 states analyzed.

    The share of renters who are behind on rent is much higher than the national average in some states and metro areas. Among the 40 states with sufficient data to include in our analysis, South Carolina has the highest share of renters with arrears (28 percent), and at least 20 percent of renters are behind in the states of Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Idaho and Montana have the lowest shares of renters with debt, at 6 and 4 percent, respectively.

    Among the 15 metros included in the Pulse survey, New York and Riverside have the highest share of renters with debt (24 percent), followed by Seattle (21 percent), and Atlanta and Philadelphia (both at 19 percent). Phoenix and Miami are tied for the lowest share of renters in arrears among the 15 metros (8 percent).

    Nationally, we estimate that rent debt amounts to about $21 billion.

    According to our estimates, households that are behind on rent owe $3,300 on average, for a total of $21.3 billion nationwide. As this average suggests, the majority of households who are behind owe one or two months of back rent. However, a smaller but not insignificant number of renters have not been able to pay rent for many months and owe much larger amounts. Our analysis of the University of Southern California’s Understanding Coronavirus in America national survey finds that approximately 28 percent are one month behind, 22 percent are two months behind, 15 percent are three months behind, and the remaining 35 percent are more than three months behind.

    The average amount owed depends primarily on local housing costs, so it varies significantly across states and metros. Among states, Hawaii has the highest average rent debt per behind-household ($5,600), while Arkansas has the lowest ($2,100). At the metro level, San Francisco and Washington DC have the highest average debts ($5,800 and $5,200, respectively), while Detroit has the lowest average debt by far ($2,500), followed by Phoenix ($3,200).

    Our national estimates of rent debt fall somewhere in the middle of existing projections in terms of total debt, and on the lower end in terms of per household amount. In January, Moody’s Analytics projected that 6.3 million renters would owe a total of $33 billion in rent debt by March, at an average of $5,282 per household. Stout Analytics estimated that between two and five million renter households owed between $13 and $24 billion as of January. Both Moody’s and Stout used the Pulse survey to inform their estimates of the number of households behind. Using a very different methodology based on modeling employment losses, income supports, and spending choices at the household level, and not incorporating the Pulse survey data, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimated that 1.8 million renter households would owe $11 billion in rent in March, at approximately $6,100 per household.

    With the incipient recovery, the number of renters with debt has declined nationwide since its peak in January, but has remained at 14 percent since late March. Most states and metros are following this decline.

    Nationwide, the share of renters with debt trended downward from a high of 19 percent in January to 14 percent in late March, and has held steady around 14 percent for the past couple of months. Nearly all states and metros followed this general downward trend since their peaks. Between January and the beginning of July, the rates of renters behind on rent rose in only nine states, the District of Columbia, and four metro.

    Among states, Georgia saw the largest spike in arrearages (from 18 to 25 percent behind), followed by Oregon (from nine to 12 percent). Missouri saw the most improvement (from 27 to 12 percent behind).

    Among metros, Seattle saw the highest increase (from 13 to 21 percent behind). Dallas saw the greatest decrease (from 27 to 10 percent).

    The vast majority of those who are behind on rent are low-income households who’ve lost jobs and income during the pandemic.

    Today’s rent debt crisis is entirely a consequence of the pandemic’s economic fallout: 68 percent of those who were behind on rent in May had lost employment income at some point during the pandemic, according to the May 12-24 Pulse survey which asked respondents this question. As our other research has shown, low-wage workers, who are disproportionately workers of color, were hardest hit by pandemic job losses and are most likely to suffer from rent debt. Among households with rent debt, 81 percent are low-income (with earnings less than $50,000 per year) and 64 percent are renters of color. The majority (51 percent) are currently unemployed.

    Renters have made tremendous sacrifices and tradeoffs to stay current on rent, including foregoing medical care, delaying payment of other bills, eating cheaper (and potentially less healthy) food, and voluntarily moving in with friends and family — increasing risk of Covid-19 exposure while losing their housing stability. One of the most surprising facts in the data is the high share of low-income renters who are paid in full: Among low-income households that lost employment income during the pandemic, 73 percent were not behind on rent as of May (also according to the May 12-24 Pulse survey).* This underscores how paying rent has remained a top priority for all renters throughout the pandemic, despite the moratoria on evictions.

    Rent is not the only debt accumulating for renters.

    While our analysis focuses on back rent, renters’ pandemic debt crisis extends far beyond their obligations to their landlords. Many renters are borrowing from family and friends or taking on other forms of debt in order to make rent and pay for household expenses. Among households behind on rent, 46 percent borrowed from friends or family to pay rent, compared with just 15 percent of households current on rent. About 30 percent of all renter households, whether behind or current on rent, used a credit card (or some other form of debt) to pay rent. Many are behind on other bills, such as utilities or car payments. A survey of water debt in California found that 1.6 million households owed $1 billion on water bills — $500 on average.

    Renters of color have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and are more likely to owe back rent, making them more vulnerable to eviction risk.

    In the United States, renters are already a more vulnerable population as a whole: they have little housing security, paltry savings, and few legal protections from exorbitant rent increases or eviction (outside of a few states and cities with strong tenant movements). Historic and continuing housing and lending discrimination, as well as systemic inequities in our labor market, have contributed to large racial inequities in homeownership. Atlas data show that seven in 10 White households own their homes while the majority of Black, Latinx, and multiracial households rent.

    The challenge of unaffordable rents and flat wages add to this underlying housing insecurity among renters. Renters were already in crisis when the pandemic began: about a third of White renters and just under half of Black and Latinx renters were both economically insecure (earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level) and rent burdened (paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent). Gender is another important axis: women of color are most likely to be rent burdened, and disproportionately face eviction.

    Covid-19 added yet another layer of inequity to these preexisting disparities. Today, 24 percent of Black renters, 17 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander and Latinx renters, and 18 percent of multiracial renters are behind on rent, compared to 9 percent of White renters.

    Eliminating Rent Debt is an Equity Imperative and a Moral, Economic, and Public Health Necessity

    Today’s rent debt crisis is a microcosm of the wretched inequality of the pandemic: millions of renter households – most of them people of color – now face the burden of owing back rent due to a public health crisis that had extremely concentrated negative economic impacts on low-wage workers. These unequal consequences are not random, but the predictable result of past policies that left millions of families with no savings to draw upon in the face of an economic shock, as well as the failed early policy response to the pandemic. Although the CARES Act provided important unemployment benefits and cash assistance as well as an eviction moratorium that helped many pandemic-impacted renters, undocumented and mixed-status families were ineligible for assistance and the moratorium ended in July, leaving renters unprotected until the CDC enacted its moratorium in early September. Moreover, absent meaningful financial assistance to pay back rent, the moratoria simply delay eviction. Yet, the federal government provided no rent relief until December, nine months into the pandemic.

    The magnitude of rent debt is a crisis in and of itself and the leading indicator of a potential eviction tsunami that would be a humanitarian disaster. Rent debt adds a heavy burden onto families who are already financially insecure and struggling during the pandemic, further limiting their choices and creating additional stress. It’s also contributing to the growth of the racial wealth gap: while renters, predominantly people of color, currently hold $20 billion in debt, homeowners, who are predominantly White, saw a $1.9 trillion increase in their home equity from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021 as competition for a constrained supply of homes drove prices up. At a time when racial equity is at the forefront of the policy debate, eliminating rent debt that has unfairly and unequally accrued for people of color should be an urgent priority.

    Clearing rent debt is also key to staving off the specter of mass eviction, which would directly harm economically vulnerable families and their communities and have long-term ripple effects throughout our economy. Eviction has significant negative consequences for mental and physical health, educational outcomes, and household finances. Some evicted families and individuals would become homeless, with devastating consequences for long-term health and well-being as well as significant costs for local governments.

    The health impacts of eviction and homelessness are even more severe during a pandemic. Research during the pandemic found that states that allowed evictions to proceed had more Covid infections and deaths than those with eviction moratoria. Although the vaccination campaign is in full swing and Covid cases are low in most states, there are hotspots with high infection rates and the longer-term picture remains uncertain.

    Forgiving rent debt is also essential to an equitable and people-centered recovery: one in which those hardest-hit by the pandemic can fully participate and thrive.

    For an Equitable and Just Recovery, Policymakers Must Clear Rent Debt and Prevent Eviction

    Recognizing the catastrophic impact of mass eviction, policymakers have responded, albeit belatedly, by enacting eviction moratoria and establishing rent relief funds. The federal CDC eviction moratorium scheduled to expire last month was temporarily extended through October 3 for most renter households, and the American Rescue Plan (ARP) passed in January provided $21.5 billion for rental assistance programs as well as $350 billion in fiscal support for state and local governments, some of which could be allocated toward debt relief. The December 27 coronavirus relief bill also provided $25 billion in funding for rental assistance.

    With the federal moratorium expiring in just a couple months and many state and local emergency rent relief programs supported by the ARP just getting off the ground, there is an urgent need to clear the debts of all tenants in need to prevent mass eviction. Throughout the pandemic, rent relief programs have not been reaching all of those in need. These programs must be structured to meet the scale of the crisis, both to efficiently deliver resources and to ensure that resources are distributed equitably, reaching the low-income renters of color who were both hardest hit by the pandemic and already housing insecure before Covid-19. Renters also need stronger eviction protections, including access to free legal assistance and eviction diversion programs. States and localities should extend their eviction moratoria until the pandemic rent debt crisis has subsided.

    As they design rent relief programs, local and state policymakers should implement policies that adhere to the following equitable, common sense principles:

    • No renter, regardless of immigration status, should be evicted or burdened with years of debt for rent that they were unable to pay during the pandemic.
    • Rent debt due to the pandemic should be fully forgiven and should not be conditioned on landlords’ acceptance of funds or participation in programs.
    • Financial assistance to landlords should address the fiscal needs of landlords in danger of going out of business due to lost rent, with a particular focus on keeping small community-based landlords and nonprofit affordable housing operators solvent, rather than attempting to achieve full rent replacement for all landlords. California’s program, negotiated with the state’s landlord association, provides an example: landlords receive 80 percent of back rent owed.
    • Local municipalities’ authority to pass stronger eviction and debt protection laws should be preserved.
    • Landlords should continue to fulfill their legal obligations to tenants regardless of whether they receive assistance, including the duty to maintain habitable premises, refrain from harassment and retaliation against tenants, and respecting tenants’ legal rights.

      For more local policy ideas and examples, see https://ourhomesourhealth.org

      * The number of renter respondents to the Pulse survey for Arkansas, Delaware, Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming was insufficient to produce reliable data to include in the dashboard.

      Tackling Structural Racism Key to an Equitable Recovery in California

      Data on unemployment filings in California reveals how the Black working class has been hardest hit by the Covid recession, underscoring the need for targeted, race-conscious recovery strategies. 

      By Eliza McCullough

      While the economic crisis has affected a startling number of workers, workers of color and low-wage workers have been hit the hardest. In California, 8.7 million workers (nearly 45 percent of the labor force) have filed for unemployment insurance (UI) since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. But job displacement has varied dramatically by race and education, as illustrated by the  California Policy Lab’s recent analysis of UI claims data. This post highlights how California’s Black workers are experiencing disproportionate unemployment in the Covid recession due to structural racism embedded in the labor market, and describes policy priorities to ensure an equitable recovery.

      About 85 percent of California’s Black workforce has filed for unemployment at some point since March 15th, which is more than double the rate for White, Latinx, and Asian or Pacific Islander workers. This includes workers who filed for either regular UI or Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), a program created by the CARES Act to extend benefits to workers not usually eligible for regular UI.* 

      This unemployment crisis for Black workers in a time of economic contraction threatens to increase already-wide racial inequities in employment. Structural racism embedded in the US labor market has created barriers to employment for Black workers that predate the current recession, ranging from employer bias and discrimination to residential segregation and mass incarceration. Black workers are typically the group hardest hit by economic downturns and are often the last to recover, as evidenced during the Great Recession when Black workers disproportionately suffered from long-term unemployment. The current economic crisis has most negatively impacted the hospitality, retail, and tourism sectors, industries in which Black workers are concentrated due in large part to discriminatory public policies that restricted Black workers’ access to better-paying jobs in other industries (a phenomenon known as “occupational segregation”). As these service sectors have gone through massive lay-offs, Black employees have been subject to the “last hired, first fired” phenomenon in which low-wage positions are the first to be eliminated.

      Further disaggregating the data by race and educational attainment, we see that racial inequities are particularly extreme among workers without four-year degrees. Workers of all races with lower education levels have been hardest hit by the Covid recession: More than half of California workers with a high school degree or less (who account for 38 percent of all workers in the state) have filed for unemployment since March 2020 compared to 13 percent of workers with a Bachelor’s degree or higher. But unemployment filings are particularly high for Black workers without post-secondary education: virtually all Black workers with a high school degree or less (99 percent) have filed for unemployment, along with 75 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander workers with this level of education, compared with 52 percent of White workers and 33 percent of Latinx workers.

      Black workers are overrepresented in lower education groups due to deep-seated structures of racial exclusion which have created significant barriers to accessing higher education. Residential segregation, perpetuated by exclusionary zoning, has led to the concentration of low-income Black children in schools with inadequate resources, which researchers have found is the key driver of the educational achievement gap. Along with the rising costs of college, these barriers prevent many Black students from accessing post-secondary education. As middle-wage jobs have shrunk in recent decades, Black workers with no higher education have been pushed into low-wage, ‘flexible’ positions with minimal protections. These jobs have been most impacted by wage cuts, diminished hours, and layoffs during the current economic crisis. 

      Toward an Equitable Economic Recovery

      Black workers and other workers of color are in dire need of increased supports in California and nationwide. Policymakers and business leaders must take action to address immediate economic needs as we enter the eleventh month of the pandemic. At the same time, they must launch forward-thinking, race-conscious strategies that lay the foundation for an equitable recovery and future economy. We recommend the following:

      1. Continue expanded UI benefits and provide direct cash support. Additional UI payments under the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program should be increased back to $600/week (as provided from March to July). Additional and ongoing direct payments, such as the one-time $1,200 payments included in the CARES Act, could also provide a lifeline to unemployed workers and Black workers who are less likely to have adequate savings to fall back on.

      2. Prevent evictions and foreclosures and provide debt relief to Covid-impacted households. As unemployed workers are more likely to be behind on rent and California’s Black renters are already paying unaffordable rent, policymakers must extend eviction moratoriums and provide rent debt relief. Limited rental assistance funds should be targeted to the hardest-hit households, particularly those in predominantly Black neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color, to prevent displacement and homelessness.  

      3. Protect existing jobs. Multiple cities have passed legislation to ensure that laid-off workers in low-wage sectors can return to their former jobs. For example, Oakland’s Right to Recall policy requires employers in hospitality and travel to give laid-off workers priority when operations resume. Similar policies that protect jobs across sectors should also be implemented at the state and federal levels to ensure low-wage workers do not suffer from long-term joblessness or decreases in income and benefits. 

      4. Build worker power. Unions have been shown to reduce racial inequality and provide economic security for Black workers. California policymakers must repeal Prop 22, which misclassifies app-based drivers as independent contractors and prevents their access to basic labor protections. Legislation that empowers workers, such as AB3075 which holds employers more accountable for wage theft, should be strengthened and expanded to ensure that recessions are less catastrophic for low-wage workers. Finally, California must increase funding for enforcement of labor and employment laws while also making state financial support for businesses conditional based on compliance with those laws.

      5. Create high-quality public jobs accessible to unemployed workers. A Federal Job Guarantee would ensure everyone has access to living-wage jobs while meeting the physical and care infrastructure needs of disinvested communities. Policymakers should take immediate steps to support unemployed workers through direct job creation in crucial sectors, like the Public Health Jobs Corp program proposed by President-elect Biden. 

      6. Expand access to upskilling opportunities and stable career pathways. Policymakers should proactively connect unemployed workers to good jobs by investing in workforce development, including higher education and training programs that reach Black workers, and enacting community workforce agreements on state-funded projects. Programs such as California’s Breaking Barriers to Employment Initiative, which funds workforce development programs for those with barriers to employment, should be strengthened and expanded while business leaders should commit to advancing equitable employment practices and offering good job opportunities to workers hard-hit by the pandemic.

         

      *The California Employment Development Department defines workforce as all individuals residing in California who worked at least one hour per month for a wage or salary, were self-employed, or worked at least 15 unpaid hours per month in a family business. Those who were on vacation or on other kinds of leave were also included. 

      #ChooseUs Week of Action

      These are unprecedented times that call for unprecedented solidarity.

      Today, PolicyLink and the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color are joining equity leaders from across California to launch a powerful #ChooseUsNotBillionaires Week of Action. Together we are demanding that Gov. Newsom and California elected officials ensure a just economic recovery that reverses historical inequities and invests in a future that benefits all Californians. State lawmakers only have until August 31st to make critical decisions regarding California’s response to the devastating impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis. They need to hear from us now!

      To launch our week of action we are calling on our elected leaders to #CHOOSE RENTERS NOT CORPORATE LANDLORDS. Over two million renters are at risk of eviction and we need policy makers to pass AB1436 to keep people in their homes. This important bill prohibits landlords from evicting tenants based upon unpaid rent during the state of emergency and some months after and provides a grace period for paying back unpaid rent. AB 1436 also protects homeowners and landlords from facing foreclosure by providing mortgage forbearance.

      Please take a minute to call the governor and state leaders to urge them to prevent an eviction tsunami and support this important policy.

      We are also asking fellow economic, racial and social justice organizations and leaders to raise your voices with us over the next week, starting TODAY – Friday, July 31st. We’ve designed the week and the activities so that there’s something that everyone can do. Can you do one or all of the following?

      1. Use the Social Media Toolkit to post and share the content for each day (the toolkit will be updated if new information arises)
      2. Help make 20 calls each day, or on certain days, to the designated targets for the day. Between you, your colleagues, family and members --- you can do it!
      3. Join on-the-ground actions. 

      Whatever you and your organization can do, it will add up and make a difference. Thank you for joining the fight and demanding that policy makers #ChooseUs!

      The Racial Equity Index: A New Data Tool to Drive Local Efforts to Dismantle Structural Racism

      New index reveals significant racial inequities even in the most prosperous cities and metros; provides data to help leaders develop targeted strategies for inclusive prosperity

      By Sarah Treuhaft, Abbie Langston, Justin Scoggins, Joanna Lee, and Manuel Pastor

      Racial equity is the defining issue of our time. The brutal murder of George Floyd — amidst a pandemic disproportionately harming the health and livelihoods of Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people — put dismantling structural racism at the center of our national policy debate.

      Against this long overdue nationwide reckoning, community leaders are searching for policy solutions that can transform systems and structures and make meaningful progress toward racial equity. Disaggregated data at the local level is crucial to this endeavor: achieving equity requires targeted solutions that address structural and institutional racism, eliminate the barriers that prevent people from thriving, and provide the resources and opportunities that people need to reach their full potential. And data that reveals which groups are being excluded, by how much, and in what policy areas is an essential ingredient to develop effective strategies that match the scale of the challenge.

      The Racial Equity Index is the nation’s first-ever tool designed to support communities in advancing equity solutions by measuring the state of equity in the 100 largest U.S. cities, the 150 largest metros, and all 50 states on key indicators of prosperity and inclusion by race. The Index is an integrated and holistic measure to compare the state of equity across different places, developed in response to the demand for a more comprehensive, summary picture of how communities were doing on our equity metrics. It provides a snapshot of how well a given place is performing on racial equity compared to its peers — comparing cities to cities, regions to regions, and states to states. Because equity means both closing racial gaps and ensuring that everyone is doing well, the Racial Equity Index is based on two components: an inclusion score that indicates the extent of racial gaps in outcomes for a series of nine equity indicators (wages, unemployment, poverty, educational attainment, disconnected youth, school poverty, air pollution, commute time, and housing burden) and a prosperity score that indicates how well the population is doing overall on those same indicators.

      This analysis shares insights from our analysis of the Index for cities and metros. Please see Introducing the Racial Equity Index to learn more about the Index and how to use it and explore the data for your community with the Index data tool.   

      Key findings from the Racial Equity Index include:

      1. Every community is hindered by systematic racial inequities. Even in the best-performing places on the Index, there are significant and preventable racial inequities.

      2. Inclusive prosperity remains elusive among America’s metros and cities. It is very rare for communities to have high levels of prosperity, in terms of overall performance on the indicators, and high levels of inclusion, in terms of low racial disparities. 

      3. Robust economic growth alone does not bring about racial equity and inclusion. While some of the regions with the most dynamic economies perform well on the Index, overall there is a weak relationship between traditional measures of economic development such as job growth, and racial equity and inclusion.

      4. Achieving racial equity requires improving conditions in the population centers where most people of color live. Few of the cities with the largest Black and Latinx populations perform well overall on the Index or on Black or Latinx prosperity.

      5. Racial equity is not a zero-sum proposition. Most of the cities and regions with the best outcomes for communities of color also have good outcomes for their White residents, and vice versa.

      Each of these is further described below.
       

      1. Every community is hindered by systematic racial inequities.

      The Index reveals just how far all cities and metros have to go to correct systems that are perpetuating racial inequities. Because it is a relative Index, even places that are the top performers have significant racial inequities. 

      Take the region of San Jose, California. The tech epicenter has the highest score on the Racial Equity Index because of its strong overall performance in terms of wages, poverty, educational attainment, and school poverty and relatively lower racial disparities on indicators of air pollution, commute time, educational attainment, and unemployment. 

      Yet, there are large racial inequities in San Jose. For example, even with the highest share of Black college graduates of any region (37 percent), there is a 23 percentage point Black-White disparity in terms of educational attainment, and the White-Latinx disparity is 44 percentage points (60 and 16 percent, respectively). And among college graduates, Black and Latinx workers earn $12-$17 less per hour than White and Asian or Pacific Islander workers. Note that while the regional median wage for the Asian or Pacific Islander population as a whole is $43, median wages vary significantly within that group

       

      2. Inclusive prosperity remains elusive among America’s metros and cities. 

      Equitable communities both have strong overall performance on indicators of well-being and low racial disparities, which is why the Racial Equity Index combines a prosperity score and an inclusion score. But what we see is that very few places are both doing well on prosperity and inclusion. 

      The metros that have the best overall performance on the indicators are not the most inclusive and tend to have wide racial disparities. Among top 25 regions on the prosperity score, none are also in the top 25 on the inclusion score, and only seven even make the top 100 on inclusion. Eighteen of them are in the bottom 50 on inclusion, including the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, which has the sixth highest prosperity score, but is second from the bottom in terms of its inclusion score.

       

      3. Robust economic growth alone does not bring about racial equity and inclusion.

      Over the past decade coming out of the Great Recession, growth in jobs and economic output has been concentrated in a small number of large metros, and within those places economic gains have largely gone to investors, corporations, and a small number of highly-educated knowledge economy workers.

      A look at post-recession job growth in regions in relation to the Racial Equity Index underscores the weak relationship between job growth and racial equity. While there is some correlation between job growth and racial equity performance, with some high-growth metros like Austin, Denver, Raleigh, and San Jose performing well on the Index, the connection is not strong. Similarly, strong job growth does not drive positive outcomes for Black and Latinx residents. Of the 25 metros with the highest post-recession job growth, only seven of them were among the top 25 regions on prosperity for Black residents (Austin, Denver, Dallas, Fayetteville, Raleigh, San Jose, and San Antonio). And only three of them were among the top 25 regions on prosperity for Latinx residents (San Francisco, Austin, and Provo).

      4. Achieving racial equity requires improving conditions in the population centers where most people of color live.

      About 29 percent of Black people in the United States live in just 50 cities, underscoring the importance of integrating place-based and people-focused solutions to advance racial equity. The concentration of different racial/ethnic groups in certain regions, cities, and neighborhoods is in large part a consequence of systems and policies that produced and reinforced racial segregation — and the persistence of inequities in those places follows from a long history of disinvestment and deprivation. Some of the highest scoring cities on the Racial Equity Index have the smallest Black populations: In seven out of the top 10 performers, the Black population is significantly underrepresented compared to the national share (Albuquerque, Chandler, Henderson, Honolulu, Irvine, Reno, San Jose). Similarly, the Latinx population is underrepresented in six of the top 10 cities on the Index (Chesapeake, Henderson, Honolulu, Irvine, Virginia Beach, St. Petersburg).

      Of the 12.9 million Black people living in the largest 100 cities, about 80 percent of them live in the 33 cities with at least 100,000 Black residents. Only two of these cities are among the top 20 performers on the Racial Equity Index (Nashville and Norfolk), and 10 are among the bottom 20 performers (Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Memphis, Newark, and New York). Only two — Durham and Raleigh, which are in the same region — are among the top 20 performers for Black prosperity, and wide racial gaps in prosperity are evident in these places:


      Similar trends hold for Latinx people. Among the 41 cities with at least 100,000 Latinx residents, only two (Albuquerque and San Francisco) rank in the top 20 prosperity scores for the Latinx population, while 12 (Charlotte, Dallas, Fresno, Hialeah, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Bernardino, Santa Ana, and Newark) are in the bottom 20.

      The cities with the best outcomes for Latinx residents tend to have relatively small Latinx populations: among the top 20 performers on Latinx prosperity, nine were among the 20 cities with the smallest Latinx populations and only five have Latinx populations at 50,000. The same dynamics are found at the regional level.

      In the 25 regions with the largest Latinx populations, only two ranked in the top 25 for regional prosperity scores on the Racial Equity Index (Boston and San Jose), and just three were among the top 25 performers for Latinx prosperity (Austin, San Francisco, and Washington DC). Even among those best performers, Latinx residents still face significant racial inequities on key indicators of prosperity.

      5. Racial equity is not a zero-sum proposition.

      Looking at the prosperity scores across racial/ethnic groups, we find that most of the cities and regions with the best outcomes for communities of color also have above-average outcomes for their White residents, and vice versa. Of the top 20 cities for prosperity for people of color, for example, all but two of them are in the top 40 for White prosperity, all but one are in the top 40 for Black prosperity (among the 16 with large enough Black populations to generate Black prosperity scores), and all but one are in the top 40 for Latinx prosperity.

      And of the top 20 cities for White prosperity, six — Anchorage, Austin, Denver, Durham, Plano, and Raleigh — are also in the top 20 for Black prosperity (among the 16 with large enough Black populations to generate Black prosperity scores) and six are in the top 20 for Latinx prosperity (Anchorage, District of Columbia, Irvine, Plano, San Francisco, and Scottsdale). Only one — Dallas — falls in the bottom 20 for both Black and Latinx prosperity.
       

      Making Progress on Racial Equity Will Require Tailored and Bold Solutions

      Our analysis of the Racial Equity Index for cities and metros reveals that even the best performing places exhibit significant racial disparities, and even the places with the most economic success post-recession fall short on equity. At a time when Black, Latinx, Native American, and Pacific Islander communities are the hardest hit by another recession, it is imperative that leaders at all levels recognize that targeted, race-conscious strategies are necessary to bring about an inclusive recovery. Doing so will create tremendous benefits that cascade up and out to the advantage of an entire community. Equity is the path to prosperity: By developing solutions that are informed by and effectively reach the people most impacted by structural racism and economic inequality, we can build an equitable, prosperous future economy.

      Introducing the Racial Equity Index

      The National Equity Atlas team is excited to announce the launch of the Racial Equity Index, our newest data resource designed to provide a single comparative metric for racial equity in US cities, regions, and states.

      Six years ago, we created the National Equity Atlas as a tool to measure, track, and make the case for inclusive growth. With 30 indicators measuring demographic change, multiple dimensions of economic and social equity, and the economic benefits of racial economic inclusion, the Atlas presents deeply disaggregated data, and hundreds of customizable displays, for 301 geographies.

      Now, for the first time, it also includes an integrated and holistic measure to compare the state of equity across different places, developed in response to your call for a more comprehensive, summary picture of how communities were doing on our equity metrics. The Racial Equity Index is designed to support advocates, policymakers, and other leaders to quickly understand the issue areas where outcomes are most inequitable, and the populations who are most impacted. This innovative tool can help communities identify priority areas for advancing racial equity, track progress over time, and set specific goals for closing racial gaps.

      The Racial Equity Index is a summary score that provides a snapshot of how well a given place is performing on racial equity compared to its peers — comparing cities to cities, regions to regions, and states to states. Because equity means both closing racial gaps and ensuring that everyone is doing well, the Racial Equity Index is based on two components: an inclusion score that indicates the extent of racial gaps in outcomes for a series of nine equity indicators, and a prosperity score that indicates how well the population is doing overall on those same indicators.

      How It Works

      First, each geography is assessed based on a set of nine unique equity indicators from the National Equity Atlas, as shown in the table below. For every geography, each indicator is translated into an inclusion value, ranging from 1 to 100, where 100 indicates the most racially inclusive outcomes observed for the geographic type (city, region, or state). The composite inclusion value for all nine indicators becomes the inclusion score for that place. (For more information on the construction of the index, see the methodology.)

      Next, each indicator is converted into a prosperity value, also ranging from 1 and 100, where 100 indicates the most positive overall outcome for that geographic type. The composite prosperity value for all nine indicators is calculated for the whole population in that geography, and the result is the prosperity score for that place.

      Finally, the prosperity score and the inclusion score are averaged to derive the Racial Equity Index, reflecting overall population outcomes as well as racial/ethnic inclusion.


      We selected these indicators to capture a range of both people-focused and place-based equity metrics that are available for all geographies in the National Equity Atlas, to include a range of interrelated systems where structural racism is manifest, and to allow for tracking change over time (both retrospectively and in the future). This set of indicators does not encompass all dimensions of racial equity; notably, we are not able to integrate any measures related to the criminal-legal system or wealth due to limited data availability.

      What It Shows

      The Racial Equity Index is designed to compare equity outcomes — using a composite score for both inclusion and prosperity — for one type of geography at a time to see how a place is doing relative to its peers. Scores are calculated independently for each point in time reported in the Index, so changes over time should be understood as relative changes (that is, a change in ranking compared to the performance of peer geographies) rather than as absolute changes in indicator values.

      In addition to reporting the overall inclusion score and prosperity score for each place, the Racial Equity Index overview breaks down outcomes in each geography by the three indicator categories shown in the table above: Economic Vitality, Readiness, and Connectedness.

      Along with the raw indicator data included on the National Equity Atlas, this comparative analysis helps to identify the issue areas in greatest need of improvement for a given place. For instance, the Minneapolis metro has one of the highest prosperity scores among the 150 largest metropolitan regions (#6 out of 150), but one of the lowest inclusion scores (#149 out of 150). This indicates that while overall population outcomes are better in Minneapolis than in most other regions, racial gaps are more pronounced. A couple of examples can help illustrate this dynamic.

      In the Minneapolis region, the overall rate of poverty/economic insecurity (the share of people with household incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level) is 23 percent — one of the lowest in the nation. But this figure obscures tremendous racial inequities: just 16 percent of White residents in the Minneapolis metro are economically insecure, compared to 57 percent of Black residents and 50 percent of Native American residents. This is reflected in the region’s Racial Equity Index scores for poverty: a prosperity score of 92 (because the overall rate is better than in most other places), but an inclusion score of 1 (indicating that racial inequities for this indicator were worse than any other region). The Racial Equity Index reveals that in the Minneapolis metro, building an equitable economy will depend on solutions that reduce poverty, support economic security, and build pathways to the middle class targeted to the Black, Indigenous, and Latinx populations experiencing the greatest inequities. The differences between the region's prosperity and inclusion scores for each indicator are illustrated in the charts below.The Minneapolis region scores well for prosperity across all indicators, especially unemployment and poverty/economic insecurity, but is in the bottom half of regions for eight out of ten indicators.

       

      Note that the Racial Equity Index should not be used to compare different geographic types; for example, you can use the index to compare the performance of the largest cities in Texas, but you cannot use it to compare Houston’s performance to the state overall.

      Prosperity Scores by Race/Ethnicity

      The index also powers another unique metric for understanding equity within and across different places: prosperity scores by race/ethnicity. These scores offer a snapshot of prosperity score gaps between racial/ethnic groups, revealing which groups are doing well and which are not, providing deeper context for understanding the overall scores for a given place.

      Prosperity scores by race/ethnicity are derived for each geography for the six major racial/ethnic groups, and for all people of color combined. Because these scores are derived from the overall prosperity scores in each place, they can be used to make comparisons across racial/ethnic groups within a given place as well as between places (again, comparing cities only to cities, regions only to regions, and states only to states).

      For example, among the 100 largest cities, the prosperity score for the Black population is highest in Plano, Texas (with a score of 67), signaling that Black residents of Plano are faring better on the underlying indicators than their counterparts in other cities. Yet Plano’s Black population still experiences significant racial gaps in most index indicators, especially educational attainment and median wages, as shown in the chart below.

      The largest equity gaps facing Plano’s Black community are for the indicators of educational attainment, median wage, and poverty/economic insecurity. This snapshot can help advocates contextualize the more detailed data in the National Equity Atlas when comparing equity outcomes within their city and across neighboring or peer cities. Black workers in Plano have a median wage of $23 per hour — higher than the national average of $18 for all Black workers in the United States, but significantly trailing the city’s overall median wage of $29 per hour.

      To learn more, see our analysis for some of the key findings for cities and metros, or visit the Racial Equity Index summary page to explore the data for your city, region, or state.

      The Coming Wave of Covid-19 Evictions: A Growing Crisis for Families in Contra Costa County

      Our analysis finds that 14,000 renter households are at imminent risk of eviction if the county’s eviction moratorium expires, with more waves of evictions close behind.

      By Jamila Henderson, Sarah Treuhaft, Justin Scoggins, and Alex Werth (East Bay Housing Organizations)* 

      In the Bay Area, as elsewhere, the coronavirus and its economic fallout have disproportionately impacted the very same people that were on the economic margins before the pandemic, including Black, Latinx, and immigrant communities (especially undocumented workers), and low-wage workers. And they are about to face an additional threat: the risk of being evicted when they can’t pay rent because they’ve lost jobs and income because of the pandemic. 

      Recognizing the immense harm posed by mass eviction amidst a global health and economic crisis, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors passed a moratorium on evictions and rent increases in April 2020, which it extended in May 2020. 

      Since then, the pandemic has not abated. In fact, the county is now slowing down reopening plans amid escalating infection rates. Yet Contra Costa’s county-wide eviction moratorium is set to expire July 15, placing scores of renters who’ve suffered economic losses during the pandemic at risk of losing their homes. 

      This analysis, produced in partnership with the Raise the Roof Coalition,** sheds light on the magnitude of this risk by estimating the number of renter households that could face eviction if the moratorium is allowed to expire. See the accompanying fact sheet.

      Tens of Thousands of Households at Risk from Coming Waves of Evictions

      Our analysis shows that lifting the moratorium at this moment would be disastrous, potentially unleashing a wave of evictions that would devastate workers, families, and their communities. We estimate that 14,000 Contra Costa County households are at imminent risk of eviction if the moratorium is allowed to expire because they include one or more workers who’ve lost their jobs and have no replacement income. Approximately 12,100 children living in these households would also face eviction.

      These imminently at-risk households include workers who were either not eligible for unemployment insurance, such as the county’s undocumented immigrant workers and informal workers, or believed they weren’t eligible or faced language and technology barriers and other challenges in filing for benefits. About 65,000 Contra Costa County residents are undocumented immigrants. This is a conservative estimate of those most at-risk: many other households could face eviction if unprotected by the moratorium.

      And this will just be the beginning. A second wave of evictions will occur when the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation – which provides a $600 weekly supplement to all workers receiving unemployment benefits – expires on July 31, 2020. Without these additional benefits, about half of workers on UI will have replacement incomes below the federal poverty level, according to the California Policy Lab. This would place an additional 8,700 Contra Costa households at potential risk of eviction due to substantial income loss.   

      These waves of evictions would come at a time when Contra Costa County is struggling with rising Covid-19 infections and unprecedented job losses. Contra Costa has seen a 65 percent weekly increase in infections as of July 7, one of the worst surges among the six Bay Area counties coordinating to fight Covid-19 (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara). The county was recently added to the California Department of Public Health’s watch list of high-risk counties because of its high case rates and hospitalizations. Contra Costa County is also one of the hardest hit by the recession: 13.6 percent of workers (72,500) were officially unemployed as of May 2020. An additional 26,700 workers have dropped out of the labor force since January and aren’t even included in the official unemployment numbers.

      Contra Costa County also has weaker emergency tenant protections than the other counties, except Marin, which is considerably more affluent. After the moratorium ends, Contra Costa renters will have just four months to repay the backlog of rent – potentially thousands of dollars on top of their regular rent – leaving tenants who face eviction with little recourse. In contrast, Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties have repayment terms ranging from six to 12 months, with evictions for non-payment of rent due to Covid-19 banned altogether in Alameda and San Francisco. 

      Karen from Raise the Roof during Renter Protection Caravan

       

      Mass Eviction Would Devastate Families and the Community, Contributing to Rising Homelessness

      Eviction is financially and emotionally devastating to families. It can cause serious harm to mental and physical health, including depression, and negatively affect children’s education. Given that the families imminently at risk of eviction have no income coming in, and most have little to no savings, many could become unhoused. Examining eviction risk in Los Angeles County, UCLA professor Gary Blasi estimated that 10 percent of those evicted due to Covid-19 would become homeless. In 2018, Contra Costa County provided services to 5,846 individuals and families experiencing homelessness; if 10 percent of the currently at-risk households became homeless, that would lead to a 21 percent increase in homelessness. This would cause immeasurable despair and disruption for families. And it would exacerbate the county’s racial inequities: already, Black people represent 34 percent of the county’s unhoused population though they comprise just 8 percent of county residents.

      This steep rise in homelessness would also strain community resources, staff, and infrastructure. The county currently spends a minimum of $20,075 per year to shelter one individual. This expense would significantly increase with the potential rise in homeless individuals and families, and only represents a portion of the full costs of homelessness. Cities, nonprofits, housing agencies, and hospitals also provide many homeless services and would also need to allocate more resources to serve a larger number of people experiencing homelessness. Although not insignificant, monetary expenses understate the true costs and long-lasting repercussions of homelessness for individuals and families. 

      Exacerbating the Housing Crisis for Black, Latinx, and Immigrant Renters

      One in three Contra Costa households rent their homes, and this share has been on the rise. Even before the pandemic, the majority of renters in Contra Costa County were already being squeezed by stagnant wages and rising rents, with 53 percent of them rent-burdened, defined as spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities. 

      Black, Latinx, and immigrant residents in Contra Costa County are not only more likely to rent versus own their homes, but also more likely to pay too much for their housing. Black and Latinx renters, especially women, face greater risks of eviction and homelessness, as they are more likely to be economically insecure and rent-burdened: 64 percent of renter households headed by Black women and 56 percent of those headed by Latina renters are economically insecure and rent-burdened. As a comparison, only 37 percent of renter households headed by White women and 38 percent of those headed by men of all races/ethnicities experience these conditions.

      Renters in Contra Costa continue to face rising economic and housing insecurity, which this crisis has underscored and exacerbated. To make matters worse, nationwide, rent-burdened households have an average savings of just $10, which is grossly insufficient to cover emergency expenses and contributes to the imminent risk of mass eviction. 

      A Preventable Crisis

      Without an effective eviction moratorium and tenant protections, vulnerable renters are at risk of losing their homes. Contra Costa County can only thrive if its renters thrive, and community leaders and policymakers must take every step possible to prevent this potential humanitarian crisis from occurring. 

      The county can protect renters with these key strategies:

      1. Extend the eviction moratorium until 90 days after the state of emergency ends. 

      2. Ban evictions for non-payment due to Covid-19, converting missed rent to consumer debt. 

      3. Increase rental assistance, tenant counseling, and legal services for low-income renters. 

      4. Pass just cause eviction protections and rent control to address gaps in state law. 

      5. Enact rent and eviction registries to evaluate current policies and ensure equity.

      For additional data, and to learn more about how to protect renters in this crisis, read the fact sheet. See the methodology for our data sources and methods of calculating these estimates.

      Last updated October 2, 2020.

      * Alex Werth, Policy Associate at East Bay Housing Organizations, serves on the Equity Campaign Leaders Advisory Committee of the Bay Area Equity Atlas. East Bay Housing Organizations is a member of the Raise the Roof coalition which produced this analysis in partnership with the Bay Area Equity Atlas. 

      ** Raise the Roof is a coalition of community, labor, and faith groups working to bring good jobs, immigrant protections, and affordable housing to the City of Concord and Contra Costa County. Members include ACCE, California Nurses Association, Central Labor Council Contra Costa County-AFL-CIO, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, East Bay Housing Organizations, Ensuring Opportunity, First Five/Central County Regional Group, Lift Up Contra Costa, Monument Impact, and Tenants Together. www.facebook.com/raisetheroofconcord.

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