Tenants Who Delayed Rent Payments During 2020–2021 Eviction Moratoria: Spending Patterns and Associations with Psychiatric Characteristics

Abstract

This study examined spending behaviors of U.S. tenants who reported delaying rent payments during federal eviction moratoria in 2020-2021, enacted in response to the Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. A national sample of 772 middle and low-income tenants who reported delaying rent payments because of the eviction moratoria were assessed from May 2020 to October 2020. Among tenants who delayed paying rent, most rent money was spent on groceries (11-19%), utilities (9-14%), substance use (8-10%), and debt (7%) across two time periods; the remaining rent money was spent on other expenses including recreation and medical care. Sociodemographic and psychiatric characteristics together only explained 2-3% of the variance in spending in major expense categories suggesting the broad impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, these findings provide insight into spending behaviors of tenants during a time of great financial and psychological distress.

Keywords:

• Eviction
• homelessness
• financial literacy
• behavioral economics

Acknowledgements

Thanks for Dr. Minda Huang for his assistance with data collection for this study.

Declaration of Interest Statement

None of the authors report any conflicts of interest with this work.