Eau Claire: Median Gross Rent as a Percent of Income by Race

• Stand-out areas for Whites include:
  • The Student Housing Area where students spend around 25 percent of their income on rent. One would think this percentage would be higher here as 95 percent of the renters are in poverty in these areas, however, it would be logical to assume that many of the students also spend a great deal of their money on tuition, leaving less left over for rent expense.
  • The Third Ward is another area with high rates of young renters.  See Renters in Poverty for more information about where young people and middle-aged people live. There is a slight increase in the percent of rent put towards rent in this area. The increase is quite small so it probably indicates that the percent is large due to slightly higher rent in this area or a few renters paying more than others towards rent; causing a skew in the numbers.
  • As you move away from the Student Rental Area and get into the suburbs a lower percent of income (notice the white surrounding the city) is spent on rent. These are more expensive (for more information see Median Gross Rent.) rentals. People who rent expensive places probably make more money, thus require less of it to be spent on rent.
• Stand-out areas for Asians include:
  • The area near Dells Pond, on the north side of downtown along with a rather unrelated area near the Chippewa River and south of Clairemmont Avenue are areas where the Asian population spends up to 50 percent of their income on rent. This is considerably higher than the top percentage for Whites of 33 percent.
  • The white areas in the downtown area of Eau Claire indicate one of two possibilities: Either the Asians who live in these areas are not spending much of their income on rent, or there are not very many Asians living in the downtown area of Eau Claire. The latter is probably the most likely answer, and the few Asians who do live in downtown Eau Claire happen to not spend more than 15 percent of their income on rent.
• Referring back to the Median Gross Rent and Renters in Poverty maps, it is clear that the three variables correlate with one another.  These correlations will lead one to believe:
  • People are renting and living below national poverty levels
  • People who are in poverty levels are likely renting low-rent apartments
  • People who are renting low-rent apartments spend more of their income on rent
• The three variables reinforce the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor, for the poor are very poor while the wealthy are very wealthy; there really isn't much in-between.  Even the so called 'Middleclass' is much better off than the poor, and really not that far behind the wealthy.