Though inflation is mild, rental rates are nearly twice as high as wage increases.
MarketWatch found that rental costs rose 3.6 percent from November last year to this year, while real wages are only up 1.8 percent.
The gap may be increasing, too. Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies says that rent-burdened (where 30 percent of income is spent on rent) households are becoming more common across all income groups.
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