Rent Burden and Demographic Change Among Veterans: A Research Brief

Housing affordability has worsened considerably over recent decades, and despite some progress, veterans remain relatively overrepresented among the unhoused. Nevertheless, veterans have historically been less impacted by housing affordability problems, whether this stems from factors such as greater access to homeownership, differential labor market returns related to veteran status or differences in the composition of the veteran population compared to non-veterans. In this study, we use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) from 1976 to 2021 to document how housing unaffordability has become a growing problem among veterans who rent. We first demonstrate how the prevalence of housing cost burden among veteran renters has converged with that of the general population over the past four and a half decades. Second, we use a decomposition analysis to identify the factors most relevant to these trends observed over the span of our data, observing that changes in household composition and growing representation of veterans across disability status, race, and gender account for significant components of rising cost burden prevalence. We conclude by reviewing policy solutions tailored to groups who are overrepresented among cost burdened veterans. Overall, we find that “rent eats first” for everyone—veterans and their families included.