In a new blog post for the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, Whitney Airgood-Obrycki and Alexander Hermann demonstrate that the share of renter households with cost burdens rose nearly three percentage points from 2019 to 2020. The experimental American Community Survey data show that widening affordability gaps by income, race and household type in the first year of the pandemic compounded existing inequities. Income supplements through expanded unemployment insurance and stimulus checks likely helped offset worsening cost burdens for some. But the overall rise in already high renter cost burden rates is troubling, particularly among the lowest-income and Black renter households.