Rising Rents, Rising Distress: The Impact of Annual Rent Hikes on Anxiety and Depression

Background and Purpose: The United States is experiencing a multifaceted housing crisis, the defining feature of which is increasingly unaffordable rental housing. Indeed, in 2024 a record-high 23 million renter households were considered rent-burdened by virtue of spending more than 30% of their income on rent. Although prior research documents a relationship between higher rent burden and adverse mental health outcomes, there has been limited attention to how year-to-year increases in rent might affect mental health. This is a notable shortcoming as large year-to-year rent hikes are increasingly common nationwide and add a new dimension to the country’s housing affordability problem. To address this gap, we use nationally representative survey data, to examine the association between year-to-year increases in rent and anxiety and depression symptoms.

Methods: We use data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey (HPS), which is a nationally representative survey conducted in frequent waves (weekly to monthly) intended to track emergent social and economic issues affect U.S. households. Our study sample includes 328,347 individuals residing in rental housing who responded to the HPS at any point between June 2022 and August 2024. Our key independent variable was derived from respondents answer to the following question: Has your monthly rent changed during the last 12 months? If so, by how much? Response options included: no change, a rent decrease, and rent increases of less than $100, $100-$249, $250-$500 and more than $500. Our outcomes were clinically relevant symptoms of depression and anxiety as measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-2) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-2), respectively. We assessed the relationship between these outcomes and past-year rent changes using binary logistic regression models adjusted for an array of sociodemographic characteristics and HPS survey wave. We also examined whether the relationship between rent changes and our outcomes varied by household income.

Results: We identified a clear gradient in the relationships between rent increases and anxiety and depression symptoms. Specifically, relative to those with no change or a decrease in rent, the odds of reporting clinically relevant depression symptoms were 1.05, 1.36, 1.68 and 1.79 times higher for those who experienced rent increases of less than $100, $100-$249, $250-$500, and greater than $500, respectively. Results were highly similar for anxiety symptoms. Additionally, the relationship between rent change and mental health varied by household income. While even increases of less than $100 were associated with significantly higher odds of depression and anxiety symptoms for those with incomes under $50,000, such increases were not significantly associated with either outcome for higher-income groups.

Conclusions and Implications: This study adds nuance to our understanding of the relationship between housing affordability and mental health by documenting that the magnitude of year-to-year rent increases is a key driver of anxiety and depression symptoms. As large annual rent hikes become increasingly common, our findings underscore the importance of expanding subsidies to support renter households, particularly those with lower incomes who are most susceptible to the adverse mental health effects of rent increases.