The federal government considers 30% of income a threshold for affordable housing. People paying more than 30% are considered to be cost-burdened.

In 2018-22, 32% of housing units in Worcester County were considered cost-burdened. This was lower than the state level of 34% and similar to the nation at 31%. The County's rate decreased four percentage points from 2008-12, slightly less than the five point decreases at both the state and national levels.

The share of units with cost-burdened residents was highest in the cities of Southbridge (45%) and Worcester (41%). Among localities with reliable data, Holden had the lowest share of units with cost-burdened residents at 20%./p>

Multi-year figures are from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The bureau combined five years of responses to the survey to provide estimates for smaller geographic areas and increase the precision of its estimates. However, because the information came from a survey, the samples responding to the survey were not always large enough to produce reliable results, especially in small geographic areas. CGR has noted on data tables the estimates with relatively large margins of error. Estimates with three asterisks have the largest margins, plus or minus 50% or more of the estimate. Two asterisks mean plus or minus 35%-50%, and one asterisk means plus or minus 20%-35%. For all estimates, the confidence level is 90%, meaning there is 90% probability the true value (if the whole population were surveyed) would be within the margin of error (or confidence interval). The survey provides data on characteristics of the population that used to be collected only during the decennial census. Data for this indicator are released annually in December.