Fresno County remains one of the state's more affordable areas for housing, compared to coastal a parts of California. But because wages tend to be lower in the Valley than those other regions, housing isn't exactly cheap for many local families.
A series of reports issued last week by Next 10 and Beacon Economics indicates that despite the statewide growth in the number of low-wage jobs, an increasing shortfall in the number of houses and apartments is driving housing costs up, and that is forcing a migration of lower-income families out of the state. At the same time, analysts say, upper-wage earners who can afford higher rents are flowing into California, driving up the housing demand in areas where jobs are concentrated.
"More than a million people left California, net, from 2006 to 2016, and the primary reason was the high cost of housing," Next 10 founder F. Noel Perry told The Bee. "Most of them were in the low-income category."
But Perry and Adam Fowler, director of research for Beacon Economics, said it is likely that higher housing costs in the Bay Area and Southern California are also propelling more people to inland parts of the state, including the Valley, in search of lower housing costs.
"If there's a cap on the housing supply or if communities allow very little new housing, it forces people to get creative," Fowler said. "They'll move (to outlying communities) and drive more, and that bids up the (housing) prices there or create another overcrowding situation. … There is a real ripple effect."
Across the Valley and the state, unemployment rates are lower than they've been in years. "At a high level, the California economy has been doing very well post-recession," Perry said. We're seeing increases in job growth in low-, middle- and high-income sectors."
But most of the jobs that are being gained in California are in lower-wage fields, including hospitality and service jobs. Even with increases in the minimum wage, Perry added, "low-income people are still not able to make it."
As a result, California has a higher proportion of people who are "house burdened," or spending 30 percent or more of their monthly income for housing, than almost any other state in the country, Perry said. The U.S. Census Bureau's 2012-16 American Community Survey estimated that more than 41 percent of California homeowners with a mortgage pay at least 30 percent of their household income for housing, and a whopping 56.4 percent of rental households pay 30 percent or more of their income on rent.
In Fresno County, the median rate for rental housing — the point at which half of homes or apartments cost more and half cost less — was estimated at $901 per month. That compares to the statewide median monthly rent of almost $1,300, according to the census estimates. Across California's 58 counties, the median rent figure ranged from a high of $1,764 in Marin County to a low of $681 in Modoc County.
In the Valley, the median rent was tabbed at $847 per month in Tulare County, $889 in Kings County and $963 in Madera County.
The Next 10 / Beacon Economics report follows an analysis by the California Housing Partnership about the need for more affordable housing for extremely low-income renters in Fresno County.