Losing Ground, fourteen years on
Housing, transportation, and the monthly cost of keeping the lights, water and connection on now consume two-thirds of a moderate-income budget. The squeeze didn't ease since CNT's 2012 study — it hardened, and opened a third front.
The 45% line is now the exception, not the rule
We applied the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index to all 927 U.S. metros — 118.7M households — then layered a rebuilt 2026 utility baseline (energy, water, garbage, connectivity) and replaced CNT's modeled transportation with our measured multimodal cost engine. Nationally the True Lifestyle Cost lands at 67.1% of a moderate-income budget. The most-burdened large metros are Miami, Riverside, Tampa, Orlando, Los Angeles.
measured (our proprietary multimodal cost algorithm) for 24 of 30 metros; H+T Index modeled for the 6 without precompute
| # | Metro | Mod. income | H | T | H+T | U/mo | H+T+U |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach | $56,143 | 42% | 23% | 66% | $606 | 79.0% |
| 2 | Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario | $64,863 | 37% | 27% | 64% | $639 | 75.8% |
| 3 | Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater | $53,925 | 36% | 24% | 60% | $595 | 73.2% |
| 4 | Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford | $57,077 | 35% | 26% | 61% | $575 | 73.1% |
| 5 | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim | $72,490 | 41% | 20% | 61% | $710 | 72.8% |
| 6 | San Antonio-New Braunfels | $55,808 | 33% | 26% | 59% | $636 | 72.7% |
| 7 | Cleveland-Elyria | $53,646 | 31% | 24% | 55% | $694 | 70.5% |
| 8 | San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad | $76,800 | 39% | 20% | 59% | $705 | 70.0% |
| 9 | Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land | $63,530 | 33% | 23% | 56% | $683 | 68.9% |
| 10 | Detroit-Warren-Dearborn | $58,442 | 31% | 24% | 55% | $630 | 67.9% |
| 11 | Pittsburgh | $57,654 | 29% | 24% | 54% | $651 | 67.5% |
| 12 | Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington | $65,614 | 34% | 22% | 55% | $632 | 66.6% |
| 13 | Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta | $65,500 | 31% | 23% | 54% | $688 | 66.6% |
| 14 | Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia | $61,863 | 30% | 24% | 55% | $594 | 66.5% |
| 15 | St. Louis | $60,267 | 29% | 24% | 53% | $662 | 66.2% |
| 16 | Cincinnati | $60,692 | 28% | 24% | 52% | $673 | 65.3% |
| 17 | Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro | $72,130 | 34% | 20% | 53% | $668 | 64.1% |
| 18 | Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler | $64,765 | 31% | 23% | 54% | $539 | 64.0% |
| 19 | Kansas City | $63,526 | 29% | 23% | 52% | $636 | 64.0% |
| 20 | New York-Newark-Jersey City | $77,047 | 37% | 15% | 53% | $681 | 63.6% |
| 21 | Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington | $67,332 | 33% | 19% | 51% | $672 | 63.0% |
| 22 | Chicago-Naperville-Elgin | $68,668 | 33% | 19% | 52% | $606 | 62.6% |
| 23 | Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown | $75,011 | 32% | 19% | 51% | $686 | 62.0% |
| 24 | Boston-Cambridge-Newton | $87,888 | 34% | 16% | 50% | $788 | 60.8% |
| 25 | Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue | $86,056 | 33% | 18% | 51% | $678 | 60.5% |
| 26 | Baltimore-Columbia-Towson | $77,317 | 31% | 18% | 49% | $681 | 59.6% |
| 27 | Denver-Aurora-Lakewood | $77,272 | 32% | 18% | 50% | $546 | 58.5% |
| 28 | Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington | $75,468 | 29% | 19% | 48% | $612 | 57.7% |
| 29 | San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley | $100,707 | 34% | 15% | 48% | $695 | 56.3% |
| 30 | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria | $94,247 | 31% | 15% | 45% | $699 | 53.9% |
Source: H/T ratios — CNT H+T Index (2022 ACS). U — rebuilt 2026 national utility baseline. Transportation measured by the CommutingCost multimodal engine. Rows shaded are severely burdened (H+T+U ≥ 70%).