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Housing is the largest line item in most household budgets, and the gap between what homeowners pay in expensive states and what they pay in affordable ones is wider than people expect. A homeowner in a high-cost state can face monthly payments that exceed the total rent of a comparable household in a cheaper one. Mortgage payments are only part of the equation: home energy costs compound the burden, and both keep climbing faster than wages in the places where prices are highest. The result is a squeeze that reaches well above the bottom of the earnings distribution and affects households at a wide range of income levels.
What makes that burden particularly hard to escape is that earnings alone do not solve it. The states where homeowners spend the largest share of their earnings on housing are not low-income places. Several rank among the top five or top ten states for median household income in the country. High wages attract elevated prices, and in the most costly housing markets, those figures have outrun even strong salaries. The assumption that earning more protects against housing strain breaks down in states where both home prices and energy costs have reached their highest levels.
