Commuters who take the bus in Miami are likely to be happy that they are not spending as much as their neighbors on transportation costs.
A new report shows just how important the cost of transportation – often something we don’t think that much about – is to our standards of living.
The authors from the Center for Housing Policy and the Center for Neighborhood Technology write that “the inclusion of transportation costs shifts the relative affordability of many metro areas. For example, housing costs in the Houston region are comparatively affordable for moderate-income households, ranking eighth out of the 25 regions examined, but adding in transportation costs drops Houston into 17th place in overall affordability.
“In contrast, metro areas such as San Francisco, Boston, and New York are some of the least affordable regions for moderate-income households when housing alone is considered, but are among the most affordable when housing and transportation costs are considered together.”
The bottom line in Losing Ground: The Struggle of Moderate-Income Households to Afford the Rising Costs of Housing and Transportation is just what the title says: housing and transportation adds up to more than 50 percent of the income of moderate-income households – defined as households earning 50 to 100 percent of the median income of their metropolitan area.
And those costs are going up considerably despite flat or even lower incomes on average since 2000. Miami has the highest burden, when it comes to housing and transportation, which eats up a whopping 72 percent of the income of moderate-income households there. Riverside-San Bernardino, California is the second-most burdened at 69 percent, with Tampa next at 66 percent and Los Angeles at 65 percent.
Places like Washington D.C. and Boston are not as affected by housing and transportation costs because there are higher-paying jobs and relatively inexpensive transportation options. Getting these relatively inexpensive transportation options on the radar of places like Miami, Tampa, and Riverside-San Bernadino is exactly what Mobility Lab is all about, and reports like this are really helpful to making it happen – and making life better for all.
Photo by Lulu Vision