The number of households making a full or partial rental payment dipped slightly in September, according to data from the National Multifamily Housing Council released Wednesday, a sign of families struggling to hold on during the pandemic recession.
The organization’s Rent Payment Tracker found that roughly 76% of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by Sept. 6, down 3 percentage points from the month before and nearly 5 percentage points from the year before.
“The initial rent payment figures from September have begun to demonstrate the increasing challenges apartment residents are facing,” NMHC president Doug Bibby said in a statement, calling on Congress to re-up pandemic relief.
One caveat to Wednesday’s data, though, is that it spanned the Labor Day weekend, which may have thrown off the results. “We’ll know more next week if there’s just a delay or whether we’re seeing more renter distress following the expiration of the enhanced federal unemployment benefits,” an NMHC staffer told the Washington Examiner.
The CARES Act pandemic relief bill, signed into law in March, provided a $600 boost to unemployment benefits and prohibited landlords from evicting tenants who failed to make rent in properties that receive federal assistance. Both of those measures expired at the end of July.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week implemented a temporary eviction moratorium through the end of the year. Bibby discounted the move because renters will still be liable for the past due rent after the moratorium expires.
“The enactment of a nationwide eviction moratorium last week did nothing to help renters or alleviate the financial distress they are facing. Instead, it only is a stopgap measure that puts the entire housing finance system at jeopardy and saddles apartment residents with untenable levels of debt,” he said.
An extension of the $600 boost in unemployment benefits would require Congress to act.
Lawmakers in both parties, including President Trump, support extending the enhanced benefit, but they have so far failed to agree on a dollar amount for the payment.
Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 8, providing a $400 bonus payment to unemployed workers. However, that would be $200 less than what the previous benefits provided before expiring in July.
House Democrats passed legislation that would extend the $600 payment until Jan. 31 for most jobless workers.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans on Tuesday released legislation that provides a $300-per-week federal unemployment insurance supplement.
