Methodology

Note

Below we share the methodology for estimating the number of renter households at imminent risk of eviction and homelessness, along with the estimated number of children in those households for renters in New York counties. We also provide a spreadsheet with the accompanying calculations for estimating eviction risk in 14 New York communities (counties or multi-county areas). These 14 communities in total include: Albany County; Bronx County; Columbia/Greene counties combined; Dutchess County; Erie County; Kings County; Monroe County; Nassau County; New York County; Orange County; Queens County; Syracuse Metro Area; Ulster/Sullivan counties combined; and Westchester County. To view the data and calculations for the New York communities, please refer to the accompanying spreadsheet.

Methodology

In this analysis series, The Coming Wave: COVID-19 Evictions: A Growing Crisis for Families, we estimate the number of renter households at risk of eviction when the local or state eviction moratoriums expire. This analysis estimates renter households at imminent risk of eviction: the number of renter households in which workers have lost their jobs and have no replacement income — considered imminently at risk of eviction — as well as the estimated number of children in those households. This is an estimate of those most at-risk: many other households could face eviction if unprotected by an eviction moratorium. Below are the methods and data sources used for estimating these numbers. Note that in the fact sheet we round our estimates of households to the nearest hundred.

Renter Households at Imminent Risk of Eviction

To produce this estimate, we closely followed the methodology for estimating eviction risk developed by Gary Blasi at the UCLA Luskin Institute in the report UD Day: Impending Evictions and Homelessness in Los Angeles. To determine recently unemployed workers we start with data from the New York State Department of Labor on the number of workers that filed initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims between March 28, 2020 (the start of the COVID-19 crisis) through August 15, 2020 (the most recent data available at the time of this analysis). The number of UI claimants, however, understates the true number of recently unemployed workers because not all of the recently unemployed file for unemployment insurance. Workers might not apply because they are ineligible for benefits (including undocumented workers, self-employed workers, and workers in the informal economy such as street vendors), or they assume ineligibility based on hours worked. There are an estimated 597,000 undocumented workers in New York State’s labor force. Other workers attempt to apply for unemployment but face difficulties doing so. To account for these newly unemployed workers not captured in initial unemployment insurance claims, following Blasi, we multiply the number of workers that have filed claims by 1.5 (a 50 percent increase). This multiplier reflects the experience of the Great Recession, when the total number of unemployed workers was 1.5 times the number of workers who applied for unemployment insurance.

Next, we estimate the number of these workers who do not receive benefits. This includes all of the filers who do not receive benefits. According to claims data for New York compiled by The Century Foundation, 4,019,925 New York workers applied for unemployment insurance and pandemic unemployment assistance, and 521,005 did not receive benefits, or 13 percent. For each geography, we assume that 13 percent of filers do not receive benefits and add that to the number of newly unemployed workers who do not apply for unemployment insurance to get the total number of newly unemployed workers with no replacement income.

To understand how many of these workers are renters at imminent risk of eviction, we need to estimate how many of them live in rental housing. It is possible that the share of newly unemployed workers that are renters varies from the overall share of renters. To estimate the rentership rate of the newly unemployed, we looked at the rentership rates of workers in industries with a disproportionate share of recent UI claims, based on data from the New York Department of Labor, using 2018 5-Year American Community Survey Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) data. For New York State this includes the following industries: health care and social assistance, accommodation and food service, retail trade, administrative support/waste management/remediation, and construction/utilities. We estimate the number of newly unemployed workers with no replacement income who are renters by multiplying the share of workers in those industries who are renters with the estimated number of newly unemployed workers with no replacement income.

We estimate the distribution of these workers into renter households based on the composition of renter households from the 2018 IPUMS data. For each geography, we estimate the share of employed adult renters who are in households with one employed adult, who are in households with two employed adults, and those who are in households with three or more employed adults. Then we estimate the number of newly unemployed workers who live in single-worker households, households with two employed adults, and households with three or more employed adults by applying the share of workers by household composition to the newly unemployed renters with no replacement income.

We consider all of the one-worker renter households at imminent risk of eviction since they have no replacement income and very likely have little to no savings. But for the unemployed workers with no replacement income living with other workers, we need to determine how many live in households where the other adults also are unemployed with no replacement income. We calculate the share of adults living in renter households with two previously employed adults who are newly unemployed with no replacement income. We then calculate the likelihood of two newly unemployed adults being in the same household assuming that the newly unemployed with no replacement income are randomly distributed across these households. Using this likelihood, we estimate the number of renter households with two adults, both unemployed with no replacement income. For the three or more working adult households, the odds all working adults would be newly unemployed with no replacement income gets very small so we assume it to be zero. 

Adding the one- and two-worker households together gives us the total number of renter households with no adult who is employed or with replacement income to pay rent and are therefore at imminent risk of eviction. Note that in our estimation methodology, to be conservative, we assume that the workers who lose their jobs and have no replacement income and live with other working adults are not at imminent risk of eviction because the adults with income will continue to pay rent so as not to be evicted, even if it causes debt or financial hardship.

Lastly, we estimate the number of children in these at-risk households by multiplying by the average number of children in renter households with one or two employed adult workers in each geography and summing the result to get an estimated number of children in households at risk of eviction.

Additional Analyses

  • Homeless population by race/ethnicity: Homeless population by race/ethnicity: New York State homeless population share by race/ethnicity from the HUD 2019 Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance Programs point-in-time report and population share from the 2018 5-Year American Community Survey (which represents a 2014-2018 average). We adjusted the homelessness data to create mutually exclusive racial/ethnic categories by assuming the non-Hispanic share of each racial group among those experiencing homelessness is the same as the non-Hispanic share of each racial group among the overall population.
  • Tenants in New York State with no or slight confidence in ability to pay next month's rent by race/ethnicity: These data points are from the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel/Stout eviction estimation tool, which is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey from the week of July 22 - July 29. The eviction risk estimate includes renters who say they have no or slight confidence in their ability to pay next month's rent and half of those who say they have moderate confidence in their ability to pay. It is adjusted to exclude households living in subsidized housing and may receive some relief or support.
  • Local or state rent burdens (total and economically insecure renters by race and gender): PolicyLink/ERI analysis of 2018 5-Year American Community Survey Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Rent-burdened is defined as spending more than 30 percent of income on housing costs. Data for 2018 represents a 2014-2018 average. Household income is based on the year prior to the survey while housing costs are based on the survey year. Data by race and gender are determined by the race and gender of the household head and are only reported if the sample size is sufficient. Economic insecurity is defined as below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $50,000 for a family of four with two children. Latinx includes people of Hispanic origin of any race and all other groups exclude people of Hispanic origin.