A housing unit is owner-occupied (including a cooperative or condominium unit) if someone whose name is on the deed, mortgage, or contract to purchase lives in the unit. Units where the elderly buy a unit to live in for the remainder of their lives, after which it reverts to the seller, are considered owner occupied. All other occupied housing units are classified as renter-occupied units, including units rented for cash, if occupants or others pay some rent, and/or occupied without payment of cash rent, such as a life tenancy or a unit that comes free with a job. Households who do not pay cash rent may still pay utilities. In the US, private renters are also defined as a complementary set: public renters are those who live in units owned by Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) or other government entities. In particular, households who live in subsidized units owned by private entities (e.g. Section 42 units, which can be for-profit, or non-profit) are classified as private; and households who live in private units but who receive housing vouchers are also classified as private renters.  First, some basics. Figure 1 shows the “renter ship” rate – the obverse of the much more widely published homeownership rate – from 1890 to date. Pre-WWII, a little over half of U.S. households rented; but post-war, this ratio fell until it hit about 35 percent circa 1970; then it took another dip from the mid-90s until it hit a minimum of about 31 percent in 2004. As the homeownership rate dipped after the subprime crisis-Great Recession of recent years, the renters hip rate has been climbing again, so that as of this writing a third of U.S. households are renting. It should also be noted that the slowdown of the U.S. economy has been accompanied by a notable slowdown in household formation. From 2000 through 2007, an average of 1.5 million households were formed annually.