The Relationship Between Exits From Federally Subsidized Housing and Wages, King County, WA

• Published in: Housing policy debate Vol. 34; no. 3; pp. 286 - 304
• Main Authors: Colombara, Danny V., Quinn, Emilee L., Pennucci, Annie, Chan, Andy, Shannon, Tyler, Havens, Samuel, Laurent, Amy A., Suter, Megan, Matheson, Alastair I.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 03.05.2024; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Federally subsidized housing; Households; Housing; Housing authorities; housing exit; Housing subsidies; Living wage; Public housing; public housing authority; Self sufficiency; wage income; Wages & salaries; Working hours
• ISSN: 1051-1482; 2152-050X
• DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2023.2299247

Federally subsidized housing programs aim for economic self-sufficiency. We modeled housing exit type's relationship with wage income using public housing authority exit data and Washington State wage data. Our cohort included 1,974 exits. Positive exits had higher mean wages ($8,392 vs. $6,643 and $6,253) and working hours (432 vs. 373 and 355) compared to neutral and negative exits, respectively. Households with positive exits were more likely to earn a living wage (33.5%) than those with neutral (16.9%) or negative (15.1%) exits. According to our model, positive exits earned an additional $1,593 (95% confidence interval: $1,031, $2,156) per quarter compared to negative exits. Wages among positive exits were substantially higher than those among neutral exits for four quarters before and after exit; wages among neutral exits were slightly higher than those for negative exits. These methods can assess the impact of programs targeting economic self-sufficiency among housing support recipients.