Picture it: Gas is $2.69 per gallon, eggs are $1.50 a dozen, and rent is just $1,300 per month.
It’s 2019 in America, and the country has yet to go through the years of high inflation that will drive the price of gas up to $4.10, eggs to $6.22, and rent to $1,700—along with the cost of many other essentials.
While it’s no secret that affordability has plummeted since the pandemic, a new analysis from the Common Sense Institute (CSI) reveals that some states were hit harder than others.
Today, the average U.S. household has about $2,170 in monthly discretionary income after covering taxes and essentials like food, gas, and shelter.
But for those in the least affordable states, the surplus shrinks to just $800.
Housing remains the ultimate budget-breaker, and the greatest driver of state-by-state differences in affordability.
The average household devoted 18.5% of its income to shelter and utilities in 2025.
But that baseline shifts dramatically depending on the map: dropping to 13.5% in the most affordable state and spiking to a staggering 28.8% in the least affordable one.
It’s a dramatic display of how the housing crisis has spilled over into a larger affordability crisis.
Overall, the report finds that households need to spend $15,400 more per year—or $1,280 per month—just to maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed in 2019.
The shifting landscape of affordability
CSI measured affordability from across six domains—shelter and utilities, groceries, health insurance, car insurance, gasoline, and child care—from 2019 to 2025.
The data reveals a consistent upward march across all categories.
During the period examined, gas rose 16.5%, health insurance increased 22.8%, grocery costs climbed 25.1%, while the combined expense of shelter and utilities surged 33.9%.
Child care rose a whopping 39%, but the most aggressive percentage increase occurred in car insurance, which ballooned 41.2% over the same period.
Yet, percentage points don’t tell the whole story.
While other costs technically climbed faster, shelter remains the heavy anchor of the American budget. And because it commands the largest portion of household spending, families are uniquely vulnerable to even moderate swings in housing costs.
“Shelter is the largest household expense captured in this analysis and is the overwhelming driver of the affordability crisis according to our rankings,” writes Zachary Milne, senior economist and research analyst at CSI and the report’s author. “Shelter costs have shaped the affordability landscape drastically over the last several years as the primary fiscal constraint facing U.S. households.”
On average, annual shelter and utilities expenses alone increased $4,934 from 2019 to 2025—a massive fixed and essential cost that ripples through every other financial decision.
Where affordability took the biggest hits
The decline in affordability was widespread, with 29 states and the District of Columbia seeing a net loss in household purchasing power.
On average, residents in these states effectively lost 3.2% of their income to the rising tide of prices.
However, the deterioration was most severe in a handful of coastal and Northeast hubs.
Rhode Island saw the sharpest decline, where households are spending a staggering 8.4% more of their income on higher costs. Massachusetts followed closely at 8.1%, with California ranking third at 7.1%.
These names will be familiar to anyone tracking the housing crisis. All three earned “F” grades on the State-by-State Affordability Report Cards from Realtor.com—driven by high housing prices and sluggish new construction.
“For the states still struggling with affordability, it’s not a case of which is the culprit between supply, demand, or ancillary costs; it’s usually all three,” says Jake Krimmel, senior economist at Realtor.com.
Rhode Island—which ranked last in the overall report card—accounts for 0.3% of the U.S. population, but filed only 0.1% of permits in 2024, despite new construction homes demanding a 43.8% premium. But, Krimmel notes, housing is rarely a solitary burden.
“One other thing that stood out was how correlated housing costs and child care tend to be,” he says. “States that ranked low on housing affordability often also did on child care affordability, representing a double whammy for families.”
Again, the geographic split here is striking.
In Kansas—the nation’s most affordable state for the service—a typical household spends 11.1% of its income, or roughly $915 per month.
Meanwhile, in New York, that monthly burden nearly triples to a staggering $2,446, according to the report.
Where affordability actually improved
Despite the national trend, 21 states managed to buck the crisis and see modest improvements in affordability. Importantly, prices didn’t actually drop in these regions; rather, local income growth outpaced the rising cost of living, leaving households with more breathing room at the end of the month.
Kansas led this group, with households spending 5% less of their total income on essentials compared with 2019.
New Mexico followed closely at 4.7%, with Utah seeing a 4.1% improvement.
According to Krimmel, these success stories usually stem from two different sources: “When it comes to what states have done right, there’s always an element of luck and an element of skill.”
For Kansas and New Mexico, the advantage was largely luck in dodging the massive pandemic-era affordability rush that saw costs skyrocket in regions like the Sun Belt.
Because demand stayed steady, their baseline costs didn’t explode.
Utah, however, is the prime example of skill.
Despite being an epicenter for pandemic migration, the state managed to keep its head above water through aggressive policy.
“Utah saw its local economy boom, which led to both rising house prices and incomes,” Krimmel explains. “But as part of that boom, Utah was also able to add to construction to offset even more house price increases.”
For a sense of the scale of this effort, Utah was responsible for 1.6% of the nation’s new building permits in 2024, despite having just 1% of the U.S. population.
And by building its way through the boom, the Beehive state proved that supply is the ultimate shield against an affordability crisis.
A country divided by the bottom line
As politicians at every echelon of government scramble to tackle the rising cost of living, the lessons from the CSI analysis are clear: If you want to fix America’s affordability woes, you must start with the housing crisis.
Shelter is the gravity that defines a household’s financial orbit, and when it’s out of balance, the rest of the budget follows.
But here again are some punishing numbers.
The U.S. is currently facing a housing shortage estimated at 4.03 million to 10 million homes—a deficit so large it might as well be a black hole.
Meanwhile, builder confidence is tanking as high interest rates and fears of an economic downswing take hold.
To build our way out may come down to the factors Krimmel mentioned earlier: plenty of skill to navigate the uncertainty ahead, and a healthy dose of luck.
