Housing cost burden (HCB), the share of a household’s income dedicated to housing and related expenses, is a useful metric for understanding housing insecurity trends. The share of veteran households experiencing HCB—a spending ratio greater than 30 or 50 percent on housing needs—is considerably less than that of nonveterans, potentially because of the additional income veterans receive as compensation for their service, such as disability compensation, pensions, and so on. Research on HCB typically considers an aggregated measure of household income from all sources. This article uses the Survey of Income and Program Participation to understand how the share of households experiencing HCB differs when considering different income streams—for example, HCB relative to private income only, HCB relative to private income plus benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and so on. Including income from VA benefits, especially VA disability compensation, in the HCB calculation contributes drastically to housing security for veteran households. Adding income for non-VA public sources, such as Social Security benefits, provides additional housing security. These results highlight the importance of VA benefits and other nonwage income in combating housing insecurity for veteran households that depend on these benefits.
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