USD/JPY

Welcome, and thank you for joining us for the Federal Reserve's Community Development Research seminar series. This series enables the sharing of important research on economic conditions and opportunities in lower-income communities. We believe that conducting research to better understand these topics is an important way to further the goal of promoting an inclusive U.S. economy. The theme of this year's seminar is "Keys to Opportunity in the U.S. Housing Market." Today's event is hosted by the Board of Governors and the Reserve Banks of Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Minneapolis, and will focus on the affordability of rental housing and exploring potential strategies to address this important issue. We know that high-quality research can help us understand and address challenging issues, so I appreciate that we are joined by researchers and practitioners to discuss their work on this important topic. Individual economic well-being and financial stability are often associated with access to stable, affordable housing. Those at the lower end of the income spectrum tend to face the most acute hardships. We often find that renters face housing affordability challenges, in part because renters typically have lower incomes than homeowners. In addition, the median renter also tends to pay substantially more for housing as a percent of their income than many homeowners. As a result, they tend to have less room in their budgets for discretionary expenses, potentially leaving them more vulnerable to income disruptions or unexpected expenses. The most vulnerable populations faced significant risks going into the pandemic, but public policy interventions mitigated many of these risks. Some of these policies will be discussed today. The job losses experienced during the pandemic and other economic disruptions exacerbated concerns tweet: FED'S BOWMAN DOES NOT COMMENT ON MONETARY POLICY OR ECONOMIC OUTLOOK IN PREPARED REMARKS ON HOUSING MARKET tweet: BOWMAN: HIGHER RENT BURDENS UNDERSCORE NEED TO CURB INFLATION