18 million Americans are house poor, a new study shows. That's a million less than last year.
CBSN
More than 18 million Americans are living in homes that stretch their budgets far beyond what's considered financially healthy.
That's the major takeaway from a LendingTree study released this week, which found that about 18.3 million homeowners are what the housing industry calls cost-burdened, or house poor. The term "house poor" refers to homeowners who pay more than 30% of their monthly income on housing — including the mortgage, utilities and other costs. Anyone who spends more than half of their monthly income on housing is considered severely housing cost-burdened.
High cost-of-living states California, Hawaii and New York have the largest share of house poor residents, while West Virginia, Indiana and Arkansas have the fewest, LendingTree said.
For nearly two decades, there's been an effort to change the way the U.S. has always elected its presidents by creating a workaround to the Electoral College, the indirect popular election process that's been used in every American presidential election in history. A collection of states is now a little closer than it was four years ago to choosing a president by popular vote, after Maine signed legislation in April to join the effort.
President Biden's administration is planning to soon issue a regulation to cement the sweeping asylum restrictions it enacted at the southern border over the summer, two U.S. officials told CBS News, describing changes that would make it far less likely for the strict rules to be lifted in the near future.
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