1. These estimates are based on an average subsidy of $813 in 1983 constant dollars (see Appendix B) for each household in the lowest quintile of income. Approximately 14.3 million households are currently estimated as "cost-burdened" by their housing expenses. Approximately 4 million units are substandard and occupied by poor families. The average moderate rehabilitation cost is estimated at $20,000 per unit. It should also be noted that income data are notoriously underreported so these estimates may overstate the severity of the "affordability gap." However, they are based on U.S. Census information and are the best estimates available.

2. Danziger, Sheldon, and Peter Gottschalk, "How Have Families with Children Been Faring?" Report to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, November 1985. The report provides information only for families with children.

3. Data variously drawn from Alfred R. Oxenfield, "Marketing Practices in the Television Set Industry," Annalist, August 1939, and the U. S. Census.

4. Joint Center for Urban Studies of Harvard University, "Home Ownership and Housing Affordability in the United States, 1963-1985," pp. 17-18.

5. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, "The Costs of hud Multifamily Housing Programs: A Comparison of the Development, Financing and Life Cycle Costs of Section 8, Public Housing and Other Major hud Programs." The table included in the text is derived from a cost-comparison chart on pp. 4-5 of this report.

6. Many housing analysts have come to this conclusion, which is articulated most clearly by Michael A. Stegman in Housing and Economics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1970; and by John C. Weicher in Housing: Federal Policies and Programs. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1980.

7. Stegman, op. cit., p. 121.

8. Joint Center for Urban Studies, op. cit., p. 17.

9. Weicher, op. cit., p. 151.

10. Maisel, Sherman J., Housebuilding in Transition. University of California Press, 1953, cited in Stegman, op. cit., p. 159.

11. Muth, Richard F., and Elliot Wetzler, "The Effect of Constraints on House Costs," Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 3 (January 1976), pp. 57-67, reported in Weicher, op. cit., p. 148.