Just Released: FY 2010 Income Limits

HUD has released the estimated median family incomes (MFIs) and income limits for Fiscal Year (FY) 2010. MFIs are used as the basis for income limits in several HUD programs (including the Public Housing, Housing Choice Voucher, CDBG, and HOME programs), as well as in programs run by the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Government Sponsored Enterprises.

The FY 2010 estimates are calculated for 535 metropolitan and 2,037 nonmetropolitan areas in the U.S. and its territories, using the Fair Market Rent area definitions applied in the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. The derivation of FY 2010 MFIs is unchanged from last year, but local and state data are updated with the 2006–2008 American Community Survey.

The FY 2010 HUD income estimates and limits, a documentation system that explains the derivation of each area's limit and median income estimates, links to the current Income Limits Area Definitions, and other useful information are available as a free download from HUD USER at https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il.html#2010.

In addition to the traditional Income Limits described above, HUD has again developed a set of income limits specifically for projects that rely upon Internal Revenue Code Section 42 Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and Section 142 projects financed with tax-exempt housing bonds. Projects in these two categories are referred to by HUD as Multifamily Tax Subsidy Projects (MTSPs). The FY 2010 HUD MTSP income limits, a documentation system that explains the derivation of each area's MTSP limit and median income estimate, and other useful information are available as free downloads from HUD USER at https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/mtsp.html.

The Federal Register Notice discusses all comments received on the proposal to end HUD’s hold–harmless policy and announces the end of the policy beginning with the FY 2010 Section 8 income limits. In eliminating the hold-harmless policy HUD allowed income limits to decline, but imposed a floor on this decline of 5 percent. Increases in income limits were capped at 5 percent or twice the change in the national median family income, whichever was greater. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 changed the tax code to protect existing MTSPs from decreases in income limits and rents by creating project-level hold-harmless calculation of income limits for existing MTSPs, thus obviating the need for HUD to continue the hold-harmless policy for the benefit of MTSPs.