Rising Rent Prices Worry Younger Voters

Pollsters and political analysts have of late twisted themselves into contortions trying to figure out what top priorities are for young voters, a key constituency in the neck-and-neck race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. The explanation is likely much simpler: The rent is too darn high.

Housing costs, and a languishing U.S. economy more broadly, turn out to be a much bigger concern for voters ages 18-29 than those often cited in news reports, such as climate change and Israel’s defensive war against Hamas in Gaza, even as this group strongly favors Biden over Trump, per a recent poll by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

The survey found Biden ahead of Trump 45% to 37% among all voters 18-29. Biden is up even higher, 56% to 37%, among likely voters.

Yet their top issue set is telling.

“We identified 16 prominent areas of concern and asked survey respondents in a series of randomized match-ups which one of two paired issues was more important to them,” a report explaining the Harvard Youth Poll numbers said. “We found that economic concerns were viewed as more prominent. Inflation, healthcare, housing, and jobs won most match-ups regardless of what they were paired against.”

How much younger voters participate in the presidential election, now less than six months away, is an open question. After all, seniors typically vote at a much higher rate. But if new voters do cast ballots at a considerable clip, their near single-minded focus on economic concerns has the potential to help decide the outcomes in swing states where housing costs are notably on the rise — Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

These by-the-numbers concerns correlate to the recent Federal Reserve decision to keep interest rates high, which leads to rising costs of housing and other goods. As the Fed maintains its interest rate target at 5.25% to 5.50%, keeping mortgage rates high, many hopeful homebuyers may be delaying purchasing homes in hopes of securing a lower rate at a later date or are priced out due to high listing costs.

“More members of the public are worried about housing affordability than has been the case in the past, and the biggest impact falls on renters because owners already have a mortgage rate locked in and their housing costs are mostly fixed,” Alex Horowitz, the project director for the Housing Policy Initiative at the Pew Charitable Trusts, said. “But renters are very susceptible to changes in housing costs.”

Among those in Generation Z who live on their own, 84% are renters, according to RentCafe.

In April 2024, the average cost of rent nationwide in the United States was $1,997, according to the Zillow Observed Rent Index. In April 2020, rent was only $1,529, leading to a 30.61% increase by April 2024. In April 2016, rents were $1,314, marking just a 16.36% increase in the four-year period ahead of the 2020 election.

“Housing is, when you look at people’s budget, often the single largest expenditure in household budgets,” Dan Hopkins, professor at the Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, said. “And so it’s no surprise that people are paying a lot of attention to that issue.”

That’s an obvious issue for Trump to drive home to voters as he argues people were better off during his 2017-21 term than the nearly 3 1/2 years of Biden’s presidency that followed.

“Joe Biden has got to be hoping for six months of low inflation and strong economic growth, and I think, in the reverse, that the Trump campaign is going to do better as it can more clearly point to the Biden economy as a negative,” Hopkins said.

Here’s how rising housing costs may play out in that trio of swing states where both candidates have already made multiple visits.

Arizona

Phoenix saw its population grow 4% from 2020 to 2023 compared to a 1% increase nationwide in the same period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Arizona has seen steeper rent increases than the rest of the U.S.,” Horowitz, who noted that the U.S. is short 4 million to 7 million homes, said. “Some of what’s going on is that they have seen residents move in in part because there aren’t enough homes in California, and so there’s been outmigration from California.”

However, this has caused Arizona to have some of the same problems that led to the outmigration from California: not enough housing to meet the demand from its influx of residents.

“That means that landlords are in a strong position to raise rents, and tenants have few options when their landlord proposes a rent,” Horowitz said.

In Arizona, 22% of voters said economic issues were their top concern, while another 4% said inflation and the cost of living were the top concern, according to a New York Times-Siena College poll conducted from April 28 to May 9, 2024.

“The share of renters who are considered cost-burdened, spending 30% or more of income on rent, has hit an all-time high,” Horowitz said. “So 50% of renters are spending 30% or more of income on rent, and that’s historically abnormal.”

Pennsylvania

Recent polling shows that Pennsylvania should be very close, again. Trump won the Keystone State in 2016 — the first Republican nominee to do so since 1988. Then Biden nabbed it back in 2020.

“Pennsylvania is a state that is sometimes the tipping point state and often a very, very competitive state, partly because our demographics look like those of the nation as a whole,” Hopkins, the UPenn professor, said. If there’s an issue that much of the country faces, “given that our demographics look a lot like a lot of the country, we’re probably facing that issue, too.”

The average increase in rent in Pennsylvania was actually less than the national average from April 2020 to 2024, at 21.36%. Still, 22% of voters said economic issues were their top concern, while 7% said inflation and the cost of living were the top concern, per the New York Times-Siena College poll.

“For Biden to win Pennsylvania, I think the economy has to both be in reasonable shape and be perceived as being in reasonable shape,” Hopkins said. “And I think that one of the strategic challenges for the Biden campaign is going to be to talk about the economy in a way that both acknowledges some voters’ frustrations but also doesn’t feed into and perpetuate a negative image of the economy, which could ultimately cost Biden.”

Michigan

Michigan has traditionally been more affordable to buy than to rent. However, Detroit saw the biggest increase in rent prices nationwide in March 2024, up 1% month over month, according to Apartments.com.

“Michigan overall has still more affordability than the other states. It’s kind of in the middle of the pack,” Tony Doblas-Madrid, an associate professor of economics at Michigan State University, said. “The percent increase in rents in Michigan has been high” as rising interest rates have pushed first-time buyers to continue renting.

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Detroit saw an increase in rents month over month of 1.7% in April 2024, and its year-over-year increase remains the second highest nationwide, at 9.98%.

Throughout the state, 20% of voters said economic issues were their top concern, and 7% said inflation and the cost of living were the top concern, according to the New York Times-Siena College poll.