Rising household incomes in the second half of the last decade lagged the increasing cost of housing in Lancaster County, with more than 4-in-10 renters and nearly a quarter of mortgage-paying homeowners classified as housing-cost burdened, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday.
According to data compiled from the American Community Survey (ACS), the cost of housing disproportionately affected renters in the county, 46% of whom are cost-burdened, meaning they pay 30% or more of their household income in rent. The median rent paid in the county was $1,114 per month in 2017-21.
The aggregate of ACS responses from 2017 to 2021 estimated median household income at nearly $74,000, up from about $67,000 from 2012 to 2016, an increase of 10%. Meanwhile, median home prices in Lancaster increased by nearly 20% to about $230,000, according to the ACS data.
The ACS, which is conducted each year, touches on a wealth of economic and social indicators and represents the bureau’s efforts to track demographic trends throughout the country in between the once-a-decade national census.
Lancaster County’s median home value ranked second among its neighboring Pennsylvania counties in 2017-21. Chester County had the highest median value at about $384,000.
The issue with housing costs largely comes down to a low supply of homes on the market, said Shelby Nauman, the CEO of Tenfold, an affordable housing advocacy and finance organization with offices in Lancaster and York.
“We don’t have enough of it,” Nauman said. “What we're finding is that because of changing household sizes, what we're building is sort of incompatible with what the need is.”
Just 3.7% of Lancaster County homes were vacant on average between 2017-21, down from 4.9% in 2012-16, according to the ACS data. With so much competition in the market, the county needs 12,000 more units in its housing supply to reach a more optimal level of between 7% and 9% vacancy, Nauman said.
“The housing prices have gone up so dramatically that it's hard for, you know, young professionals or people just starting out to really afford a first home,” she said.
Increasing housing costs can have a “snowball” effect on homeowners, Nauman said, forcing them to defer maintenance that ends up being more expensive in the future. From a renter’s perspective, being cost-burdened can make it harder to carve out funds for health care and groceries and makes it necessary to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
“The ripple effects of that are huge,” Nauman said.
The proportions of cost-burdened renters and homeowners in Lancaster County mirrors national and state trends. Nationwide, nearly half of renters and more than 27% of homeowners with a mortgage were cost burdened in 2017-21; in Pennsylvania, the same was true for an estimated 47% of renters and about 24% of mortgage-paying homeowners.
Among neighboring Pennsylvania counties, Lancaster ranked fourth in proportion of cost-burdened renters and first in cost-burdened homeowners with a mortgage. Of all 67 counties, Centre County had the highest proportion of cost-burdened renters in Pennsylvania at 58%.
“It is a national trend, and unfortunately, it can’t be a national issue,” said Andrew Szalay, the president of Lancaster Lebanon Habitat for Humanity. “The challenges reside with local municipalities … it really comes down to what is permitted in their zoning.”
In 2018, Lancaster County adopted Places2040, a comprehensive plan to, among other priorities, improve housing costs and access for residents in the next two decades. The plan called for an increasing housing density in targeted growth areas surrounding Lancaster city and the county’s boroughs.
“The data is also showing us that we need to be concerned about the continued increase of housing costs in the county,” said Scott Standish, the director of the Lancaster County Planning Department. “Places2040 calls for us to provide a greater supply and diversity of housing types to own and rent and to identify ways to reduce regulatory barriers that unnecessarily increase the cost of housing.”
Income increases, but unevenly
The ACS data suggests the county saw some lower-earning households increase their earnings over time, as the number of households making less than $75,000 a year declined by about 17,000 from 2012-16 to 2017-21 while the county’s total number of households increased.
But the increases in income have largely been concentrated in households making above six figures: More than 25,000 more households reported earning above $100,000 in 2017-21, comprising a third of households in the county, compared to just under 23% in 2012-16.
The growth in income has generally coincided with an increasing proportion of residents with higher educational attainment. The percent of adults 25 and older who graduated high school increased nearly two percentage points from 2012-16 to 86.4% in 2017-21, and the percent with a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from an estimated 25.7% to 29.7%.
Lancaster’s proportion of people 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher ranked third among its neighboring Pennsylvania counties, behind Chester and Dauphin Counties.
Compared with 2012-16, about 3,000 more people in the county had associate’s degrees; 11,000 more people had bachelor’s degrees; and 8,000 more had graduate or professional degrees, according to the data.
The increase coincided with a growing proportion of workers in management, business, science and arts occupations, while the share of workers in service, sales and office occupations decreased. The county also saw an increase in workers in production, transportation, and material moving occupations, according to the data.
