housing
Rent-burdened households
Why this matters
Cost burden means paying 30% or more of your income on housing. This measure counts the share of renter households (those whose rent-to-income ratio can be computed) that cross that line. When rent eats up a third or more of a paycheck, there is less left for food, child care, transportation, savings, and emergencies.
A higher share signals greater need and financial strain. Cost-burdened renters are more likely to fall behind, move often, or face eviction. Households spending more than half their income on rent are considered severely burdened.
In recent years, rent burden has climbed to record levels nationwide, reaching well beyond the lowest-income renters. Tracking it locally shows where affordable rental housing is falling short.
Charlotte makes the stakes concrete. Mecklenburg County faces a shortfall of roughly 36,000 affordable units (about 23,000 for households at or below 30% of area median income), and its eviction caseload is among the nation’s highest: around 46,000 cases filed in 2024, roughly double the 2020 level.
The city’s voter-approved Housing Trust Fund (a $100 million bond in 2024) is the main local tool for adding affordable homes.
About the Charlotte region
This explorer covers the 14-county, two-state Charlotte region (11 North Carolina and 3 South Carolina counties). Many of these indicators connect to a defining regional story: a landmark Harvard study ranked Charlotte last, 50th of the 50 largest U.S. metros for economic mobility (a child raised in the poorest fifth had about a 4.4% chance of reaching the top fifth), a finding that launched the region's Leading on Opportunity agenda. Updated 2024 data show Charlotte has since climbed to 38th.
Opportunity here is also unevenly mapped. An affluent “wedge” fanning southeast from uptown holds a large majority of the city's wealth on under a quarter of its land, while a ”crescent” to the north, west, and east carries higher poverty, a legacy of redlining, exclusionary zoning, and highway routing that recurs across the race, income, health, tree-canopy, and school maps in this tool. No single indicator is good or bad on its own; together they describe how the region sorted opportunity.
Companion resources: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer · UNC Charlotte Urban Institute · Opportunity Atlas · Methods & sources
Learn more
- U.S. Census Bureau — Nearly half of renters are cost-burdened census.gov
About half of U.S. renters pay 30%+ of income on housing, with breakdowns.
- Princeton Eviction Lab evictionlab.org
National eviction data and rankings; Charlotte ranks among the highest-filing large cities.
- Mecklenburg Housing Data mecklenburghousingdata.org
Local dashboard tracking eviction filings, the affordable-housing gap, and instability.
- U.S. Census Bureau — Housing data hub census.gov
Central portal for rent, home value, and housing cost data.
About the data
Calculated from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (2014–2024), at the Census-tract level, with margins of error. ACS 5-year vintages overlap year to year, so the series is a rolling estimate; compare only non-overlapping periods.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.