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

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• Federally subsidized housing
• public housing authority
• housing exit
• wage income

Acknowledgments

The authors extend their appreciation to Michael Moores for providing the relevant ESD wage data and to Dr. Kris Johnson for copy editing this work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Percentage Area Median Income (AMI) is defined as the midpoint of a specific area’s household income distribution and is scaled according to household size. It is a critical metric used in determining eligibility for housing support. Locally, eligibility begins at 80% AMI and waiting list preference is given to those with income at or below 30% AMI.

2 Each year the US Census Bureau determines a federal poverty threshold, which is an income threshold that varies according to family composition and size. It is based on pre-tax income and excludes noncash benefits. Families with incomes below the threshold are considered in poverty. Since the thresholds do not vary geographically, less than 200% of the federal poverty threshold is often used as a better metric of poverty in high cost of living areas.

3 Insufficient wage data is defined as an individual who was matched with the ESD database but lacked wage data for the quarter of exit and the four quarters before and after exit.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development under funding opportunity FR-6400-N-58.

Notes on contributors

Danny V. Colombara

Danny Colombara, PhD, is an epidemiologist with Public Health—Seattle and King County and an Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington.

Emilee L. Quinn

Emilee L Quinn, MPH, is a Senior Program Evaluation Analyst at the King County Housing Authority.

Annie Pennucci

Annie Pennucci, MPA, is the Director of Impact and Evaluation at the King County Housing Authority. She has conducted applied research in government and non-profit settings for over 20 years.

Andy Chan

Andy Chan, PhD, is a Strategic Advisor at Seattle Housing Authority. He has an extensive background in providing direct service with people receiving federal housing assistance.

Tyler Shannon

Tyler Shannon is a Senior Data Analyst at King County Housing Authority. He has been a researcher and analyst for non-profit organizations for over 15 years.

Samuel Havens

Samuel Havens has worked at Employment Security since 2018.

Amy A. Laurent

Amy A. Laurent, MSPH, was a senior epidemiologist with Public Health—Seattle and King County and is currently a Global Health and Research Manager at Microsoft. She has focused on health and housing, social determinants of health, cross-sectional partnerships, and informatics.

Megan Suter

Megan Suter, PhD, is a CDC Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) Applied Epidemiology Fellow at Public Health—Seattle & King County. She completed her doctoral training in epidemiology at the University of Washington.

Alastair I. Matheson

Alastair Matheson, PhD, is the Data Modernization Director at Public Health—Seattle & King County and an Affiliate Instructor at the University of Washington.