Using the American Community Survey (ACS) and the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) CPI estimate Novogradac is able to estimate area median income and very low income for 2020 and 2021, and those estimates also provide some insight into overall income limit trends.

The number of cost-burdened households (those paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing) aged over 65 has reached a new high of 10 million, according to "Housing America's Older Adults 2019," a supplemental report to the State of the Nation’s Housing Report, released by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS).

Novogradac estimates the U.S. median income will increase by just under 4 percent in 2020 and 3.4 percent in 2021. The change in U.S. median income is especially important as increases in low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) and Section 8 income limits are limited to the greater of 5 percent or two times the change in U.S. median income. Based on this formula, the cap for 2020 will be just under 8 percent and the cap for 2021 will be just under 7 percent. This is a slowdown in median income growth from the last couple of years, however, it is still very robust growth in median income. 

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) published Revenue Procedure 2019-41, announcing $2,709,998 of unused low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) allocated from the national pool to 31 qualified states for calendar year 2019. (Note that the term state includes a possession of the United States and constitutional home rule cities Chicago and New York City.)