Housing shortages and skyrocketing rental prices have become a major source of tension in many countries around the world. According to data from a Statista Consumer Insights survey, the topic of housing is considered the most pressing issue right now in the Netherlands by Dutch respondents. It is the second most pressing issue after the cost of living in Canada and Australia. As the following chart shows, in the United States too it is considered a pressing concern for around four in ten people. Issues that ranked higher in the U.S. were inflation, crime, the economic situation and health and social security. Respondents were asked to select which issues they thought were most dire in their country right now, with 18 options in total.
According to a survey of industrialized nations by the OECD, low-income tenants in the U.S. are among those struggling the most with housing costs. Almost half of all low-income renters in the U.S. spend more than 40 percent of their income on housing. This puts the country towards the top of the list of the least affordable housing markets in the OECD, only topped by Latin American countries Chile and Colombia. 30 percent or one third of income after tax spent on housing is generally considered the maximum amount any renter should pay.
The data refers to private renters (and mortgage holders) as those on the subsidized market are expected not to have their resources overstretched by rent. While the OECD has no comparable figure of how many U.S. residents pay subsidized rent, Department of Housing and Urban Development data suggests that close to 3 percent of Americans benefit from the department’s housing assistance.
