North Carolina Housing and Income in the Early 1970s

I was looking through some teaching material used in the early 1970s in Extension’s Housing Course and came across some information about homes in North Carolina. I was surprised to see that there were a fair number of North Carolinians who lived in homes without complete plumbing—a toilet, shower or bath, sink, and running hot and cold water.

Some 252,722 homes with “incomplete plumbing” were considered substandard housing in 1970. That was 15 percent of all occupied houses in the state. Most--209,000--were in rural areas. And residents of substandard housing were overwhelmingly African-American families--107,908 of the 252,722 homes. Some 38.6 percent of African-American families, or about 4 out of 10, didn’t have complete plumbing facilities in 1970.

What About Income?

The publications also had information on the average annual budget for three hypothetical urban families: a 38-year-old husband employed full time, his wife, who stayed at home, a boy of 13 and a girl of 8. “After about 15 years of married life, the family is well-established and the husband is an experienced worker. The family has, for each budget level, average inventories of clothing, house furnishings, major durables, and other equipment.” So here’s what they were spending in 1971:

Annual Budgets for Three Living Standards, Urban U.S., Autumn 1971, Family of Four—Husband, Wife, Boy, 13, and Girl, 8
	Lower	Intermediate	Higher
Food	$1,964	$2,532	$3,198
Housing	1,516	2,638	3,980
Transportation	536	964	1,250
Clothing and Personal Care	848	1,196	1,740
Medical Care	609	612	638
Other Family Consumption	368	684	1,129
Social Security, Insurance, and Contributions	744	979	1,356
Personal Taxes	629	1,366	2,614
Total Budget	$7,214	$10,971	$15,905
Equivalent Budget for Durham, N.C.	$7,009	$10,489	$14,984
Percent of U.S. Budget	97%	95.6%	94.2%
From Lesson No. 3, Budgeting for Housing, published by the Home Management Department, N.C. Agricultural Extension Service, N.C. State University at Raleigh

This publication also gave information on home values in North Carolina, as revealed by the 1970 census.

Percentage of N.C. Homeowners	Value of Homes
35.8%	Less than $10,000
40.4%	From $10,000 to $20,000
18.4%	$20,000 to $35,000
5.3%	More than $35,000

Almost half of the occupied housing units were owned by the occupants.

Percentage of N.C. Renters	Monthly N.C. Rent
45.3%	Less than $60 per Month
27.2%	$60 to $100
11.8%	$100 to $150
3.3%	More than $150
11.9%	No Cash Rent

Of all housing units occupied year-round in North Carolina:

--82.7% were single-family structures,

--5.3% were mobile homes, and

--11.9% were multiple unit structures, or apartments.