High housing costs are driving poverty in these 10 states

Dive Brief: High housing costs are a contributor to poverty in multiple states, an analysis by Pew Charitable Trusts found.

Pew Charitable Trusts built on the research of University of Oxford Professor Zachary Parolin to examine how housing supply and costs affect poverty.

Parolin’s study discovered that increasing housing costs offset more than half of the increase in SNAP benefits from 1989 to 2023 in the states examined, according to the analysis.

“Even when incomes rise, households remain at risk of poverty if housing costs increase at a greater rate — making housing a critical issue for policymakers to address,” Pew Charitable Trusts said.

A 20% rent decrease could reduce poverty by up to 26% in the studied states, according to Pew Charitable Trusts’ analysis of Parolin’s work.