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The use of the housing allowance, as the fastest growing social benefit, has more than doubled across the country compared to last year. But be careful, if we look at the share of households that are forced to use this benefit to supplement existing incomes, the differences within the regions are considerable.
It is possible to zoom in on individual cities and towns and to view details by clicking on the selected area. The larger the point, the more benefits paid out in absolute numbers, the more saturated the color, the greater the share of households in a given location receiving the benefit.
The map is based on unique data, which Seznam Zprávy exclusively obtained from the Labor Office, on the drawing of the housing allowance over the last ten years down to the level of individual municipalities. In this case, we focused on the last year (2023) when the payment of this benefit jumped significantly.
Many cities are worse off than the countryside
The first big surprise comes right away when looking at the cities and the countryside. The shares of households whose income is not enough to cover housing costs are surprisingly higher precisely in cities, where at the same time salaries are higher compared to rural areas. In theory, it should be easier for people to cover the costs associated with housing.
But it’s more complicated. For example, owner-occupied housing is more widespread in the countryside than in the cities. And it is rental housing in cities that drives the statistics. The next chapter is inflation and the fact that real wages are falling – so housing takes an ever larger share of income.
Brno and Prague are limping along
We mapped how the use of the housing allowance is distributed throughout the country, and found that a larger proportion of households claim this benefit in Brno than in Prague, which has a reputation as a city with high salaries. Roughly four percent of households have to cover housing costs with an allowance. Brno households are in a worse situation: the share of those claiming allowance is six percent.
Rents are higher in Prague, and the individual allowance for housing, which is around eight thousand crowns, corresponds logically to this. In Brno, the individual contribution is surprisingly comparable (CZK 7,400). But if we want to find out not only to which places this state money flows (this is shown on the map by the size of the dots), but also the level of burden in each place, it is necessary to perform a relative conversion for all households. The higher the share of households that draw the allowance, the richer the color on the map.
It is possible to see not only the classic areas in the north of Bohemia and Moravia, but also the fact that Prague and Brno are not enough for Pilsen (see labels in the tabs next to the map above).
Poor localities with big cities
If you look at the north of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, you can immediately see how high the share of households is that currently cannot pay for housing without the housing allowance: in the north-western part of Bohemia, this is roughly one in ten households.
Serious situation in Karviná and Havířov
The same proportion of households is also in the Moravian-Silesian region, again around 10%, but the situation is visibly worse in Karviná and Havířov. In both cities, not even one in six households can survive without state aid.
The legislation was recently changed so that the condition for receiving the allowance was unified at 30% of income for all residents of the Czech Republic, regardless of their place of residence. This change helps to target support more precisely, especially to smaller households, thanks to a revised division into groups according to household size.
The growth in the number of applications for housing allowance and its disbursed volumes reveals a growing dependence on this form of state support. We mapped this in the introductory part, which deals with the housing allowance.
Interest in housing benefit is also growing among young families, who consider rent when making housing decisions, as opposed to mortgages, which are not eligible expenses for receiving housing benefit. This trend points to the significant impact of the allowance on people’s housing decisions and highlights the need for further adjustments and consideration of its long-term sustainability and equity.
Who do benefits end?
In addition to the volumes of funds themselves, it is also crucial who exactly the state pays contributions to – i.e. who is the final recipient of the benefits. From the unique data that Seznam Zpráv’s data specialists are gradually processing, it is possible to see an overall increase across the country on the one hand, but at the same time, huge differences in the shares of households in the individual regions where benefits are drawn are evident. We will get to those gradually in other parts, in which we will also focus on who are the real recipients of state money.
Households whose housing expenses exceed 30% of their total income are entitled to housing allowance. An important condition is that the amount must not exceed the set normative costs, which are determined according to average housing expenses depending on the size of the municipality and the composition of the household (rent, prices for services and energy). In response to the energy crisis, these norms were temporarily increased last year, but the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs assumed that the situation on the energy market would improve and reduced the norms again this year.
