Our analysis finds that nearly 137,500 households in the Bay Area are behind on rent and facing rent debt. These households are overwhelmingly low-wage workers of color who’ve suffered job and income losses during the pandemic.

By Jamila Henderson and Michelle Huang

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic saw an unprecedented spike in unemployment in the Bay Area and across the country. While some people have returned to work, unemployment remains higher than pre-pandemic levels, and the economic burden of unemployment and lost wages continues to weigh on many families and their ability to pay rent and other necessities.

Without expanding and strengthening unemployment insurance benefits, eviction moratoriums, and renter protections, there will be a wave of households losing their homes in the second year of the pandemic. This analysis sheds light on the magnitude of this risk by estimating the number of Bay Area renter households that are behind on their rent and reporting on the estimated amount of rent debt these households could face. We estimate the share of households behind on rent using the Census Household Pulse Survey and estimate rent debt using data from the American Community Survey on household rent. Estimates are available for the nine-county Bay Area region and the individual nine counties. See the accompanying fact sheet and methodology.

Nearly 137,500 Households at Risk of Eviction and Indebtedness

We estimate that 137,500 Bay Area households (about 11 percent of renter households) are behind on rent and at risk of eviction and indebtedness absent strong worker and renter protections. In addition to the devastating impact on the financial and physical security of these households, evictions and housing instability could deepen the public health crisis of Covid-19 by raising unnecessary exposure to the virus.

Overall, these renters owe about $488.3 million in renter debt, an average of nearly $3,600 per household behind on rent. A larger share (21 percent) of households earning less than $50,000 per year are behind on rent, meaning an estimated 86,600 low-income households are at risk of eviction and indebtedness. Rent debt for low-income households is estimated at $256.4 million, or approximately $3,000 per low-income household behind on rent.

In the Bay Area, Average Rent Debt Per Household Is Highest in San Mateo County, at More Than $4,400

Average rent debt for Bay Area households behind on rent (nearly $3,600) is comparable to the region’s median market rent before the pandemic ($3,500). By county, estimated rent debt per household is highest in San Mateo County ($4,400) where rents are relatively high. San Francisco surprisingly ranks last ($2,900 per household in rent debt), even though it is the most expensive rental housing market in the country. San Francisco experienced a recent “exodus” during the pandemic and economic downtown, and with it, a sharp decline in rents. It’s still unaffordable for many renters however, especially those who have lost jobs or income during the pandemic. San Francisco’s rental housing market is also likely to bounce back as conditions improve.

People of Color, and Low-Income Renters are Disproportionately Impacted by the Recession and More Likely to be Behind on Rent

Renters facing rent debt are overwhelmingly low-wage workers of color who’ve suffered job and income losses during the pandemic. Eight in 10 Bay Area renters who are behind on rent earn less than $75,000 per year, and nearly 90 percent are people of color. These largely low-income renters of color have faced significant financial hardships during the pandemic: More than half are currently unemployed and eight in 10 have lost employment income.

Expanding Protections for Vulnerable Renters

The region’s unemployment rate reached its highest level of the year at 13 percent in April 2020. By comparison, the peak unemployment rate in 2019 was only three percent. And the unemployment rate does not account for workers—predominantly women of color—who left their jobs to take care of their children or elderly parents. Since January 2020, more than 100,000 workers have dropped out of the labor force and are no longer included in the official unemployment numbers. The federal CARES Act provided expanded unemployment benefits that have been critical to workers who lost their jobs or hours due to the pandemic, however these benefits are set to expire March 14, 2021. Meanwhile, many displaced workers ineligible for unemployment insurance coverage, including undocumented and informal workers, have been struggling to pay rent for nearly the past year.

On the eviction protection side of things, California has an eviction moratorium that is stronger than the federal moratorium, and the governor recently extended California’s eviction moratorium through June 2021. California also passed the COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act with the passage of SB 91 which provides rental assistance to eligible tenants and landlords. Although these funds intend to provide relief for lower-income tenants unable to pay their full rent due to a Covid-19 related hardship, the decision to accept these funds rests with landlords. The aid would cover 80 percent of a tenant’s rent debt and landlords would need to forgive the rest. Tenants whose landlords reject funds could still apply for rental assistance, but it would only cover up to 25 percent of rent debt. Beginning August 1, 2021, landlords can start eviction proceedings to recover COVID-19-related rent debt accrued since the start of the pandemic.

Mass Eviction Would Devastate Families and Communities, Contributing to Rising Homelessness

Eviction is financially and emotionally devastating to families. It can cause serious harm to mental and physical health and negatively affect children’s education. Examining eviction risk in Los Angeles County, UCLA professor Gary Blasi estimated that 10 percent of those evicted due to Covid-19 would become homeless. In 2019, 35,028 individuals were experiencing homelessness in Bay Area counties; if 10 percent of currently at-risk households became homeless, that would lead to a 44 percent increase in homelessness. This would cause immeasurable despair and disruption for families and exacerbate existing racial inequities. Already, Black residents represent 29 percent of people experiencing homelessness in the region but only 6 percent of Bay Area residents.

Such a steep rise in homelessness would also strain the resources, staff, and infrastructure of cities and counties, nonprofits, housing agencies, and hospitals that provide many homeless services. The Bay Area was grappling with a significant affordable rental housing shortage before the pandemic and is not equipped to rapidly rehouse a growing number of residents at risk of eviction and homelessness.

Exacerbating the Housing Crisis for Black and Brown Renters

Even prior to the pandemic, Black and Latinx renter households, especially those led by women, were most likely to be rent burdened (defined as spending more than 30 percent of income on rent and utilities). In addition to being rent burdened, women renters were also most likely to be economically insecure, defined as earning less than 350 percent of the federal poverty level. This is about $87,000 for a family of four or $44,000 for a single individual. The economic fallout of the pandemic has disproportionately fallen on the same groups of people who were already struggling.

Share of Bay Area Renters Who Are Both Rent Burdened and Economically Insecure

Many of the jobs and industries hardest hit by business closures, and likely to be among the slowest to bounce back, are low-wage jobs—disproportionately held by women and people of color due to continuing racial segregation and discriminatory policies. In California, nearly 84 percent of Black workers have applied for unemployment insurance benefits since the start of the pandemic. About 32 percent of all Latinx workers have also applied for benefits, but this number is likely understated due to the high share of undocumented immigrant workers. Women are also more likely than men to have filed for unemployment during the pandemic, with 48 percent of women and 42 percent of men applying for benefits.

Bay Area renters continue to face rising economic and housing insecurity, which this crisis has only exacerbated. And too few have the financial resources to weather such a storm: nationwide, rent-burdened households have an average savings of just $10.

Worker and Renter Protections Need to be Strengthened and Expanded to Support Families

As businesses begin to open again following a record number of cases during the winter holidays and the end of stay-at-home orders, policies at the local, state, and federal level should prioritize the economic security of all residents based on the following common sense principles:

1. Local governments need to enact strong eviction moratoria and rent freezes; provide rental assistance/debt relief and legal services for low-income renters; pass just cause eviction protections and rent control; and create rent and eviction registries to evaluate current policies and ensure equity.
2. California needs a moratorium that lasts for the duration of the pandemic and recovery; debt relief that reaches every struggling tenant; and an inclusive process that provides a seat at the table for those most impacted. Local municipalities' authority to pass stronger eviction and debt protection should be preserved.
3. The federal government needs to extend and expand the eviction moratorium; provide rent debt relief targeted to the highest-need households; and extend expanded unemployment and other emergency assistance benefits.

For additional data, and to learn more about how to protect renters in this crisis, read the fact sheet. See the methodology for our data sources and methods of calculating these estimates. Learn more about strategies for Securing Housing Justice for All.

Data on unemployment filings in California reveals how the Black working class has been hardest hit by the Covid recession, underscoring the need for targeted, race-conscious recovery strategies. 

By Eliza McCullough

While the economic crisis has affected a startling number of workers, workers of color and low-wage workers have been hit the hardest. In California, 8.7 million workers (nearly 45 percent of the labor force) have filed for unemployment insurance (UI) since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. But job displacement has varied dramatically by race and education, as illustrated by the  California Policy Lab’s recent analysis of UI claims data. This post highlights how California’s Black workers are experiencing disproportionate unemployment in the Covid recession due to structural racism embedded in the labor market, and describes policy priorities to ensure an equitable recovery.

About 85 percent of California’s Black workforce has filed for unemployment at some point since March 15th, which is more than double the rate for White, Latinx, and Asian or Pacific Islander workers. This includes workers who filed for either regular UI or Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), a program created by the CARES Act to extend benefits to workers not usually eligible for regular UI.* 

This unemployment crisis for Black workers in a time of economic contraction threatens to increase already-wide racial inequities in employment. Structural racism embedded in the US labor market has created barriers to employment for Black workers that predate the current recession, ranging from employer bias and discrimination to residential segregation and mass incarceration. Black workers are typically the group hardest hit by economic downturns and are often the last to recover, as evidenced during the Great Recession when Black workers disproportionately suffered from long-term unemployment. The current economic crisis has most negatively impacted the hospitality, retail, and tourism sectors, industries in which Black workers are concentrated due in large part to discriminatory public policies that restricted Black workers’ access to better-paying jobs in other industries (a phenomenon known as “occupational segregation”). As these service sectors have gone through massive lay-offs, Black employees have been subject to the “last hired, first fired” phenomenon in which low-wage positions are the first to be eliminated.

Further disaggregating the data by race and educational attainment, we see that racial inequities are particularly extreme among workers without four-year degrees. Workers of all races with lower education levels have been hardest hit by the Covid recession: More than half of California workers with a high school degree or less (who account for 38 percent of all workers in the state) have filed for unemployment since March 2020 compared to 13 percent of workers with a Bachelor’s degree or higher. But unemployment filings are particularly high for Black workers without post-secondary education: virtually all Black workers with a high school degree or less (99 percent) have filed for unemployment, along with 75 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander workers with this level of education, compared with 52 percent of White workers and 33 percent of Latinx workers.

Black workers are overrepresented in lower education groups due to deep-seated structures of racial exclusion which have created significant barriers to accessing higher education. Residential segregation, perpetuated by exclusionary zoning, has led to the concentration of low-income Black children in schools with inadequate resources, which researchers have found is the key driver of the educational achievement gap. Along with the rising costs of college, these barriers prevent many Black students from accessing post-secondary education. As middle-wage jobs have shrunk in recent decades, Black workers with no higher education have been pushed into low-wage, ‘flexible’ positions with minimal protections. These jobs have been most impacted by wage cuts, diminished hours, and layoffs during the current economic crisis. 

Toward an Equitable Economic Recovery

Black workers and other workers of color are in dire need of increased supports in California and nationwide. Policymakers and business leaders must take action to address immediate economic needs as we enter the eleventh month of the pandemic. At the same time, they must launch forward-thinking, race-conscious strategies that lay the foundation for an equitable recovery and future economy. We recommend the following:

1. Continue expanded UI benefits and provide direct cash support. Additional UI payments under the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program should be increased back to $600/week (as provided from March to July). Additional and ongoing direct payments, such as the one-time $1,200 payments included in the CARES Act, could also provide a lifeline to unemployed workers and Black workers who are less likely to have adequate savings to fall back on.

2. Prevent evictions and foreclosures and provide debt relief to Covid-impacted households. As unemployed workers are more likely to be behind on rent and California’s Black renters are already paying unaffordable rent, policymakers must extend eviction moratoriums and provide rent debt relief. Limited rental assistance funds should be targeted to the hardest-hit households, particularly those in predominantly Black neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color, to prevent displacement and homelessness.  

3. Protect existing jobs. Multiple cities have passed legislation to ensure that laid-off workers in low-wage sectors can return to their former jobs. For example, Oakland’s Right to Recall policy requires employers in hospitality and travel to give laid-off workers priority when operations resume. Similar policies that protect jobs across sectors should also be implemented at the state and federal levels to ensure low-wage workers do not suffer from long-term joblessness or decreases in income and benefits. 

4. Build worker power. Unions have been shown to reduce racial inequality and provide economic security for Black workers. California policymakers must repeal Prop 22, which misclassifies app-based drivers as independent contractors and prevents their access to basic labor protections. Legislation that empowers workers, such as AB3075 which holds employers more accountable for wage theft, should be strengthened and expanded to ensure that recessions are less catastrophic for low-wage workers. Finally, California must increase funding for enforcement of labor and employment laws while also making state financial support for businesses conditional based on compliance with those laws.

5. Create high-quality public jobs accessible to unemployed workers. A Federal Job Guarantee would ensure everyone has access to living-wage jobs while meeting the physical and care infrastructure needs of disinvested communities. Policymakers should take immediate steps to support unemployed workers through direct job creation in crucial sectors, like the Public Health Jobs Corp program proposed by President-elect Biden. 

6. Expand access to upskilling opportunities and stable career pathways. Policymakers should proactively connect unemployed workers to good jobs by investing in workforce development, including higher education and training programs that reach Black workers, and enacting community workforce agreements on state-funded projects. Programs such as California’s Breaking Barriers to Employment Initiative, which funds workforce development programs for those with barriers to employment, should be strengthened and expanded while business leaders should commit to advancing equitable employment practices and offering good job opportunities to workers hard-hit by the pandemic.
   

    

*The California Employment Development Department defines workforce as all individuals residing in California who worked at least one hour per month for a wage or salary, were self-employed, or worked at least 15 unpaid hours per month in a family business. Those who were on vacation or on other kinds of leave were also included. 

Our analysis finds that the expiration of unemployment benefits on December 26th will place tens of thousands of families at risk of eviction.

Amidst record rates of Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations triggering a regionwide stay-at-home order, the lifeline benefits sustaining about 141,700 unemployed Bay Area workers hang in the balance while Congress debates another stimulus package. 

On December 26, 2020, two of the CARES Act programs – Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) – are scheduled to expire. The PUA program expanded unemployment benefits to cover gig workers and self-employed workers, and the PEUC program extended the regular 26-week unemployment insurance benefits by an additional 13 weeks. Although California will offer extended unemployment benefits beyond December 26th, many workers currently receiving PEUC will not qualify for them because they had lower prior earnings or seasonal work histories (including many agricultural workers).

With no replacement income and a bleak job market, these workers will face grave risks to their health and livelihoods. We estimate that 60,500 of these workers are renters, and if they do not find work immediately, they will be at imminent risk of eviction when the statewide eviction moratorium expires on January 31.* This includes about 14,900 renters in Alameda County, 11,300 in Santa Clara, 10,500 in San Francisco, 9,800 in Contra Costa, 4,100 in San Mateo, 3,900 in Solano, 3,400 in Sonoma, 2,100 in Marin, and 400 in Napa. This only represents a subset of Bay Area renters at risk of eviction: renters who lost jobs and income during the recession and received no unemployment benefits are also at risk of eviction (as we've estimated in our eviction risk analyses).

The same groups of workers hardest hit by the pandemic recession – Latinx workers, Black workers, young workers, and low-wage service sector workers – are disproportionately at risk of losing their unemployment benefits the day after Christmas, according to the California Policy Lab’s analysis of worker demographics. 

Extending these critical worker protection is crucial for equitable recovery in the Bay Area. With Covid cases spiking throughout the region, mass eviction would be a public health catastrophe. A recent study found elevated Covid infection rates and deaths in the states that have allowed evictions to continue through the pandemic. Beyond these Covid impacts, eviction drives people into poverty, displaces people from their communities, scars credit records, disrupts children’s education, leads to homelessness, and negatively affects mental and physical health. Starving workers of essential income would also have a chilling effect on the recovery.

 

*To calculate the number of renters at risk of eviction as a result of the December 26th benefits cliff, we used estimates of the number of workers exhausting benefits from PUA or regular UI from California Policy Lab's December 14th report. These numbers are then adjusted to account for the different rates of rentership for PUA and regular UI recipients. Those rentership rates were derived from the 2018 5-year American Community Survey (ACS) microdata from IPUMS USA, based on a universe of workers who are more likely to have experienced unemployment during the pandemic. Specifically, we restricted to the civilian noninstitutionalized population age 18 or older with earnings of greater than zero but less than the 66th percentile statewide ($52,899), employed in the top five industries with high UI claims in each county based on an assessment data from the California Policy Lab (May 21st and July 2nd reports), and estimated to have lawful immigration based on data from the USC Equity Research Institute. Among this universe, Rentership rates for self-employed workers were applied PUA exhaustees while rates for wage and salary workers were applied to regular UI exhaustees, based on the California Policy Lab’s finding that 89 percent of initial PUA claims were from workers who were previously self-employed, while rentership rates for wage and salary workers were applied to regular UI exhaustees.

Our analysis shows that regionwide, the share of top Black electeds parallels the share of the Black population. Yet, many cities including those with increasing Black populations lack Black elected leaders.

The nation faces two deadly and interrelated pandemics that disproportionately impact Black Americans: the coronavirus and systemic racism. Health co-morbidities due to environmental racism and occupational hazards undoubtedly play a role in the virus’s toll on Black communities, but so too does a deeply rooted concept embedded in the national consciousness that goes back to the original sins of our country: a hierarchy of human value that places Black and Native American people on the bottom and Whites at the top. This ideology contributes to racial inequities in nearly every facet of American life, including politics as detailed by the diversity of local electeds dataset maintained by the Bay Area Equity Atlas.

The landscape of Black local elected officials in the Bay Area varies substantially, according to our analysis of data on the diversity of elected officials from 2018 and 2019. Regionwide, the share of Black local elected officials equals the share of Black residents – an indicator of representativeness – but Black residents are completely left out in 80 out of the region’s 101 municipal governments.

Beneath the regional level, however, some Bay Area cities did improve on the representativeness of their top electeds, while others fell behind. This post shares key findings from our analysis of how the region’s 101 cities are doing on this measure, which is calculated based on the share of top local elected officials who identify as Black. Note that the city electeds include both city council and county elected officials (supervisors and DAs) because county electeds also represent city residents. This means that the typical city/town has 11 electeds included in the analysis (5 council members, 5 county supervisors, and one county district attorney).

As Black Residents Move Inland, Some Suburbs Saw a Rise in Black Politicos

The Black population in the Bay Area declined by nearly 42,000 people from 2000 to 2015 – an 8 percent drop. And within the region, Black residents have moved outward from the regional core to inland communities. From 2000 to 2018, for example, the city of Richmond saw a 16 percentage-point decline in the Black population share from 36 percent to just 20 percent. Cities like Antioch and Oakley in Contra Costa County and Rio Vista in Solano County, on the other hand, saw five percentage-point plus increases in their Black populations.

Our most recent analysis of Black local elected officials partially reflects these shifting demographics. By 2020, two of the top three cities with the most Black representation in local elected governments – Pittsburg and Antioch – are located in Eastern Contra Costa County.

Pittsburg, Richmond, and Antioch each elected an additional Black representative in 2018. The city of Pittsburg had five Black elected officials (at the city and county level), but that number increased to six by 2020 when Pittsburg became the only city in the region where the majority of local elected officials are Black. Richmond also gained a Black city council member in the 2018 election, and by 2020, 46 percent of the city’s local elected officials were Black. The city of Antioch, where 36 percent of top local electeds are Black, surpassed Oakland to round out the top three.

At the same time, historically Black cities in the coastal core of the Bay Area with long histories of Black community organizing saw steep declines in the share of Black residents. Oakland, Richmond, and East Palo Alto experienced double-digit decreases in the share of Black residents from 2000 to 2018. Previous studies describe in great detail this reorganization of racial segregation in the Bay Area, and the findings from the diversity of electeds database suggests that outer suburbs in Contra Costa County are faring decently when it comes to Black representation in local elected government.

Black Residents Underrepresented Among Top Electeds in Vallejo, Fairfield, San Leandro, and Vacaville

A few cities, however, are notable for their lack of Black representation at the city and county levels. The first is the city of Vallejo, where one in five residents are Black but only 8 percent of local elected officials are Black. This is despite the fact that the city elected a Black city councilmember in 2018. Black residents are also underrepresented in the city of Fairfield, where Black residents make up 14 percent of the city’s population but are just 9 percent of elected officials.

San Leandro, Berkeley, and San Pablo, each lost a local Black elected official in 2018. Today, just 15 percent of local elected officials in San Leandro are Black. The city of Vacaville, which has roughly the same Black population share as East Palo Alto, lacks any Black representation in local government at the city or county level.

Two other cities have relatively small Black population shares but saw sizable increases in Black residents despite no Black representation among top local electeds. The city of Rio Vista in eastern Solano County saw a six percentage-point increase in the Black population since 2000 but lacks Black representation in top local elected positions. The San Mateo County city of Brisbane similarly saw an increase in the Black population share of five percentage-points but none of city or county top elected officials identify as Black.

Two Peninsula Cities Gain Big and Make History

Our analysis also reveals that Menlo Park saw the largest increase in Black representation from 2018 to 2020. In 2018, Menlo Park was one of 59 cities without any Black representation in top local elected offices. But with the election of Mayor Cecilia Taylor and Vice Mayor Drew Combs in 2018, the city gained two additional Black representatives, making up 18 percent of top local elected officials.

The neighboring Peninsula city of Los Altos made history in 2018, electing their first Black city council member: Vice Mayor Neysa Fligor. After losing her 2016 election bid by just 6 votes, Vice Mayor Fligor came back in 2018 to win every precinct in the city. The Vice Mayor is also the youngest councilwoman on the only all-female city council in the region.

A Clear Need for Action

While representation does not ensure the passage of more equitable policies, it matters for political power. Local officials hold considerable power over the everyday lives of Bay Area residents, including local police and sheriff’s departments, and they ought to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. Improving on this indicator involves directly addressing the multiple barriers that hold Black residents back from running for political office whether they are economic, institutional, or political. It also requires a bold agenda to curb Black displacement in the region and the passage of policies that allow Black residents, especially low-income residents and renters, to stay put.

Even before the coronavirus epidemic and nationwide uprisings against racial injustice, working class people in the region were struggling to make rent, find affordable childcare, and secure living-wage jobs. The historic spike in layoffs and unemployment brought about by COVID-19 has only exacerbated economic insecurity. Many families are struggling to make ends meet and are focused on finding work and paying bills rather than increasing political involvement.

But political inclusion is a critical part of building a more equitable region, and we, along with our partners at Bay Rising, lift up the following recommendations to move us towards just and fair inclusion into a region where all can participate and prosper:

• Local governments (cities, towns, and counties) should pass structural reforms including public campaign financing and campaign finance reform to curtail corporate contributions, secret Super PACs, and “pay-to-play” politics.
• Local and national philanthropies and corporations should fund equity-oriented leadership development programs, like Urban Habitat’s Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute that prepare people from underrepresented communities of color to effectively engage in public policy.
• Policymakers and funders should support voting reforms and civic engagement efforts that increase voter registration and turnout among underrepresented communities, especially in local elections.