Rent burdens run lighter in Maricopa County than in Clark County, Nevada

If the rent check takes a big bite out of your paycheck in metro Phoenix, you're in the majority. You're also right in the national middle.

Of Maricopa County's renter households, 52.6% were cost-burdened over the 2020-2024 period, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Nationwide the share was 51.1%, and across Arizona it was 51.4%. The survey is too imprecise to say any of those shares is truly higher or lower than the others.

The deeper squeeze looks much the same. About a quarter of the county's renter households were severely cost-burdened, compared with just over a quarter of renters nationally. Statistically, the county and the nation are even on that measure.

For those households, rent leaves little room for anything else, including the power bill that comes with cooling a house through a Valley summer. Being typical doesn't make that math any easier. It only means Valley renters aren't facing it alone.

Across the full range of rent-to-income bands, from renters comfortably under the line to those at the very top, Maricopa County households land close to renters nationwide.

Better off than Las Vegas, even with Texas

The comparison that matters most to many Valley renters is the desert metro next door. In Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, nearly 3 in 5 renter households were cost-burdened, or 57.7%. Maricopa County's share was 5.2 percentage points lower, a gap large enough to hold up statistically.

The distance is wider still from Riverside County, California, where 59.4% of renters were cost-burdened. Maricopa County came in 6.8 percentage points below it.

Against other big Sun Belt counties, the Valley looks ordinary. Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, was at 53.8%; Dallas County was at 52.1%; and Fulton County, Georgia, home to most of Atlanta, was at 50.5%. The survey can't reliably separate any of them from Maricopa County.

Clark and Riverside counties also carry heavier severe burdens. In Clark County, 29.8% of renter households were severely cost-burdened, and in Riverside County, 29.8%. Maricopa County's share was 4.6 percentage points lower than Clark County's.

More apartments on the ground

Developers built more apartments in Maricopa County in 2024 than they did in 2023 (azfamily.com). Rent prices in the Phoenix market have dropped, and the average rental apartment costs less per month than it did a year earlier (azfamily.com).

The survey estimates here cover 2020 through 2024, so they describe the squeeze across those years as a whole, not where rents stand today.

Evictions at record levels

A rent burden that matches the nation's has still come with plenty of households falling behind. The county saw its highest number of eviction filings in 2024 (phoenixnewtimes.com), and tenants evicted that year still left owing money on average, according to court records (kjzz.org).

Arizona put money toward civil legal aid for the first time in its history (phoenixnewtimes.com). The need is sharpest in a few places: ZIP codes in Maryvale, Glendale and east central Phoenix had the highest rates of eviction filings (phoenixnewtimes.com).

About the data

We used the Census Bureau's American Community Survey 2020-2024 estimates of gross rent as a share of household income, limited to renter households for whom that share could be computed. We compared Maricopa County with Arizona, the U.S. and the principal counties of peer metros in Texas, California, Nevada and Georgia, counting a difference as real only when it exceeded the combined margins of error. Arizona's figures include Maricopa County, so the county-versus-state comparison is approximate.

• These are survey estimates with margins of error, and several of the differences reported here are too small to be distinguished from zero.
• The estimates pool 2020 through 2024 together, so they can't show how rent burdens changed year to year or where they stand now.
• The data count how many households are stretched; they don't explain the reasons or show how much money is left after rent for other bills.

Cost-burdened: the standard federal affordability threshold for renter households whose gross rent, including utilities, takes up a large share of income. Severely cost-burdened: the higher threshold, for renter households whose gross rent takes as much of their income as is left over, or more.

Sources

• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey: Gross Rent as a Percentage of Household Income in the Past 12 Months (ACS 5-year 2020–2024), latest period 2024; retrieved Oct. 20, 2026. Data