End of extra unemployment benefits could cause crisis for renters

With more than 32 million people set to lose the additional $600 per week in unemployment benefits when the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) program expires this week, the share of renters facing a severe housing-cost burden could skyrocket – with Black households disproportionately affected. According to a new analysis by Zillow, the expanded unemployment benefits have had a marked impact on households suffering from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. While missed rent payments have grown – 12.4% of renter households paid no rent in the first two weeks of July – they haven’t grown as much as might be expected given record unemployment levels. Renters in the service industry actually had lower cost burdens when collecting all benefits available to them than they did prior to the pandemic, according to Zillow. And only 3% of renter households in high-risk jobs are severely cost-burdened if collecting all the available