Housing Needs and Economic Conditions of Cook County’s Older Adults, 2021

Intended as a baseline resource to inform current conversations and future analysis of critical housing issues facing older adults, Housing Needs and Economic Conditions of Cook County’s Older Adults establishes that households headed by an older adult represent a large and rapidly growing share of households in Cook County and that there is variation in both the current economic conditions and nature of older adult household growth in the city and suburbs. Critically, reflecting both the community and individual impact of systemic racial inequality and uneven economic opportunity for people of color, this analysis highlights that economic conditions such as income, cost burden, and presence of mortgage debt vary widely by older adult householder race and ethnicity and for older adults in the city and suburbs.