The 2009 American Housing Survey has data on the cost of rents. I used table 4-13 which is the selected housing costs for renters in occupied units. They give the number of people who pay rent at various levels. The distribution is as follows:
RENT | # people |
Less than $100 | 247,821 |
$100 to $199 | 728,148 |
$200 to $249 | 737,987 |
$250 to $299 | 643,144 |
$300 to $349 | 580,787 |
$350 to $399 | 778,144 |
$400 to $449 | 993,290 |
$450 to $499 | 1,100,710 |
$500 to $599 | 2,985,135 |
$600 to $699 | 3,807,736 |
$700 to $799 | 3,708,979 |
$800 to $999 | 6,060,278 |
$1,000 to $1,249 | 4,776,518 |
$1,250 to $1,499 | 2,630,587 |
$1,500 to $1,999 | 2,246,719 |
$2,000 to $2,499 | 718,360 |
$2,500 or more | 596,433 |
No cash rent | 2,037,037 |
And graphically it looks like this :
You can see that the bulk of the renters fall in the middle area. 64% of renters pay between $500 and $1,250. 17% of renters pay under $500. The remaining 19% of renters pay over $1,250.
About 2 million people pay no cash rent. I'm not showing those in the chart. I assume those people are getting free rent from relatives or something along those lines.
Geographically the different major regions in the USA also have different distributions of rent. Here is a look at the percent of renters who fall into three broad groups of under $500, $500 to $1,250 and over $1,250:
The biggest difference is between the Midwest and the West. 24% of people in the Midwest pay under $500 and 12% of people in the West pay that little. On the other end 30% of West renters pay over $1,250 and only 8% of the people in the Midwest pay that high.