About a third of Americans miss rent payments in April due to coronavirus pandemic

A record number of Americans applied for unemployment in March, but many landlords still expected tenants to pay rent.

As a result, nearly a third of renters didn’t make payments by April 5, according to a new study from the National Multifamily Housing Council.

The NMHC found that while 82% of tenants payed rent in April 2019, only 69% paid in April 2020. Nearly 10 million Americans applied for unemployment in March, after the coronavirus pandemic brought on massive layoffs, CNN reported.

The United States’ longest-running economic expansion came to a screeching halt, and the chance of a recession within 12 months is now at 100%, according to a model created by Bloomberg Economics. The model “incorporates a range of data spanning economic conditions, financial markets and gauges of underlying stress,” Bloomberg reported.

Renters, who generally have a lower income and less stable employment, are at greater risk for financial loss, according to Yahoo! Finance. About 35% of renters lost income in March and 45% do not have enough money saved to cover their rent payments, according to a survey cited by Yahoo! Finance.

Fortunately, some taxpayers who provided direct deposit information can expect some relief as the IRS begins distributing payouts as part of the federal government’s $2 trillion stimulus bill, according to Forbes. The IRS expects to send out paper checks to taxpayers making less than $10,000 a year by April 24, Forbes reported.

But that may not come soon enough for other low-income renters; taxpayers earning between $10,001 and $20,000 won’t see a check until May 1, according to Forbes. Renters making between $20,001 and $30,000 a year won’t get theirs until as late as May 8, Forbes reported.

It is important to note that there are 44 million renter households in the U.S., but the data from the NMHC only includes 13.4 million and excludes subsidized housing, according to CNN. The full impact will potentially remain unknown until May, CNN reported.

“People were working in March. April rent may have come from their savings,” Priscilla Almodovar, CEO of Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit for affordable housing development, told CNN. “The rent check is probably the first thing they pay. Now they may be unemployed, and we don’t know what resources will get to them in time for May.”

Enterprise Community Partners wants direct rental assistance from the government for renters, according to CNN. At this point, it’s up to landlords to decide how to proceed as the economy continues to take a hit during the coronavirus pandemic, CNN reported.

This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 3:56 PM with the headline "About a third of Americans miss rent payments in April due to coronavirus pandemic."