New York City tenants are paying more for rent than they did before the recession began in 2008, according to a report by the Community Service Society, an advocacy group for low-income New Yorkers.
The city's median rent increased to $1,100 a month in 2011 from $950 in 2008. The percentage of New York City households spending more than half their income on rent grew to 29 percent in 2011, up from 26 percent in 2008.
New York City's Rent Guidelines Board will vote tomorrow on whether to increase the cost of rent-stabilized apartments in the city. The price increase could be between 1.75 and 6.75 percent for New York's one million rent-stabilized units.
"In this downturn, people's incomes have gone down, but it's not like their expenses are going down," Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, told the Wall Street Journal.
"In a lot of other downturns, New York often trailed the rest of the country in the recovery. Now New York has as many or more jobs than other places in the country, so people may be hanging on."
There is a greater demand for rentals as fewer people are able to afford to buy their own house or apartment. There is also an increase in the amount of people living in the city since it has become harder to find employment in smaller cities.
