It's not the only critical expenditure, but it's by far the largest and arguably the most important
...and that's especially true for those in the poorer economic brackets.
It's only a potential wash if one's food expenditures and transportation expenditures were the same sized portion of their budget that their rent is.
If you look at the chart above, that's not the case.
For the bottom 20 percent, food & transportation, combined only total 29.9% of their monthly expenditures, while housing alone is 40.4%.
So, even if we just zero in on the categories you mentioned.
With the rates of rent inflation over the past 5 years, as I outlined in a previous post...
The price of rent has increased by 24% over that time period.
The price of food has decreased by 4%
For transportation, the price of vehicles has gone up by 4%, while the price of gas is down by 19%
Just to use nice even numbers to work with.
John Doe has $1500/month to work with.
40.4% goes to rent = $606
15.4% goes to food = $231
14.5% goes to transportation (but only 30% of transportation costs are gasoline, the rest is the car payment itself = $217 * .30 == $65
Leaving John with $598 left over after those 3 things (obviously some of that would be going toward the other smaller line times shown in the graph above)
After the aforementioned changes took place.
Rent is now $751
Food is now $221
Gas costs are now $52
John now has $476 to work with after those 3 expenditures are covered.
To your other point about the recession housing cost decrease, that really only comes into play for people buying a home vs. renting...which, in the context of people who are poor, isn't an option in most cases, the overwhelming majority of poor people rent instead of own.
With regards to renting, the rental inflation rate has been higher than the overall inflation rate more times than not from 1984 to present day.
View attachment 264984
From 2000 till present, here's how it's played out
(overall inflation rate on the left, rent inflation rate on the right)
View attachment 264993
16 years out of the last 20, the rent inflation rate has been higher than the overall national inflation rate...combined with the fact that it accounts for over 40% of a poor person's budget...
The numbers speak for themselves...