In a city with the nation's highest percentage of renters, the wild unaffordability of rentals is a big damn deal. Earlier this week we learned that Los Angeles has the worst ratio of median income to median rent; Angeleno renters earning a median income have to put 47 percent of that income toward the average rent. Now KPCC has put together an awesome (if depressing) interactive map that provides an in-depth examination of what percentage of their incomes households are doling out on rent, and where, if anywhere, people can actually afford the places they live. (Conventional wisdom is that households should spend 30 percent of their income on housing; any more starts cutting into other essential spending.) The map, navigable by zip codes, uses data from the Census and its American Community Survey. No surprise, but still terrifying: All the dark orange on the map signals that the majority of the renter households in those zip codes are paying more than 30 percent of their rent. Most staggering, though, is how many are putting 50 percent or more of their monthly wages toward rent, even in fancy neighborhoods.
· High rent, Few options [SCPR]
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