The (somewhat) good news: according to the newly-released 2013 American Community Survey (ACS), housing cost burdens declined for the third straight year in 2013. Last year, 39.6 million households spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing, down from 40.9 million in 2012 and a peak of 42.7 million in 2010. Still, just over a third of U.S. households (34 percent) were cost burdened in 2013, including about a quarter of all homeowners (26 percent) and half of all renters (49 percent) (Figure 1).
via Housing Perspectives (from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies).