The biggest beneficiaries of housing subsidies? The wealthy.
The two methods the government uses to help residents are rental assistance programs and home-ownership tax programs. But the way these programs are designed, the majority of the funds go to those who don't have the greatest need. Greater Greater Washington has more.
“All told, households making over $100,000 a year received nearly 90 percent of the $90 billion spent on the two tax programs discussed above. Households making less than $50,000 got a little more than 1 percent of those benefits. It gets uglier. There are nearly eight million low-income homeowners that struggle to pay for housing from month to month. On average, low-income households get about eight cents per month from these two homeownership tax programs. Eight cents. There are also about four million middle-income households paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing. The average monthly benefit from these tax programs for middle-income earners? Twelve bucks. Don’t spend it all in one place. ”