The Fact
The 1969 Brooke Amendment established a maximum tenant contribution of 25% of income for federally assisted housing. Congress raised the contribution to 30% in 1981.
What This Means
The familiar 30% housing-affordability threshold has a policy history. It did not originate as a universal law of household budgeting or mortgage underwriting.
The 30% benchmark is now widely used to identify housing-cost burden, but understanding where the number came from helps distinguish a policy benchmark from a biological or mathematical rule that applies identically to every household.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Trends in Housing Costs: 1985–2005 and the 30-Percent-of-Income Standard (Eggers & Moumen, 2008), together with the federal policy history of the Brooke Amendment and the 1981 change.
- POLICY YEARS: 1969 / 1981