Rent debt will be a persistent threat to the housing security of millions of renters, along with eviction, as 28 percent of renters are starting the year with unpaid rent bills from previous months, amassed while the economy buckled under the coronavirus pandemic, according to the latest Apartment List survey.

For minority renters, the missed-payment crisis has been even more damaging. In the fall of 2020, the missed-payment rate for non-white renters was nearly 50 percent higher than that of white renters. This is just one of many ways that minority groups are burdened with an outsize share of the pandemic’s economic fallout; beyond housing, people of color have disproportionately experienced loss of employment, loss of health insurance, loss of food security, and more severe health impacts.

“As we did throughout much of 2020, our team collected data on housing, race, and financial outcomes using a nationally-representative survey of over 4,000 respondents taken during the first week of January 2021. The findings highlight how the persistent and unequal effects of 2020’s housing crisis are spilling over into the new year,” Apartment List said in the survey.