Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

How Affordable is Housing in Pennsylvania?

Lindsay Lazarski
/
WHYY

Not at all, according to the latest analysis from the Philly Fed.

The vast majority of lower-income households in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware spend more than the conventionally-advised one third of income on housing.

That's the primary takeaway form the Federal Reserve's Philadelphia office housing affordability analysis released Tuesday.

Fed researchers looked at U.S. Census housing cost and availability for low-income, very-low income and extremely low-income renters in 2012 in the Federal Reserve's Third Districtand its component states (New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania) and Metropolitan Statistical Areas (Dover, Trenton, Atlantic-City-Hammonton, York-Hanover, Harrisburg-Carlisle, State College, Lebanon, Reading, Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, Erie, East Stroudsburg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington and Lancaster), and the city of Philadelphia.

Read a full version of this reportat the website of Keystone Crossroads, a statewide public media initiative reporting on the challenges facing Pennsylvania's cities.