The National Arc: Five Decades in One Table
Averaging the national series by decade shows a story with a surprise at the start: the country got less tenant-protective before it got more so. The 1980s average (2.52) sits below the late-1970s average (2.63), and the series bottoms out at 2.33 in 1987 — the most landlord-friendly year in the entire half century.
| Period | Average national score (0–10) | Change vs. prior period |
|---|---|---|
| 1976–1979 | 2.63 | — |
| 1980s | 2.52 | -0.11 |
| 1990s | 2.93 | +0.41 |
| 2000s | 3.22 | +0.29 |
| 2010s | 3.86 | +0.64 |
| 2020–2025 | 4.99 | +1.13 |
The yearly data reveals three distinct waves of regulation, each sharper than the last:
- The early-1990s step. After hovering below 2.6 through the deregulatory 1980s, the national average jumped from 2.55 in 1991 to 2.97 in 1992 — a +0.42 one-year move — then settled into a long plateau between roughly 3.0 and 3.2 that held for fifteen years, through 2007.
- The foreclosure-crisis climb. The plateau broke in 2008: 3.08 in 2007 became 3.56 in 2008 and 3.79 by 2009, as jurisdictions layered on protections in response to the housing collapse. The average reached 3.89 by 2011 and drifted gently upward through the 2010s, ending the decade at 4.15 in 2019.
- The pandemic spike. 2020 delivered the largest single-year move in the 50-year series: 4.15 to 5.43, a jump of 1.28 points. The average peaked at 5.44 in 2021, then gave back roughly half the surge as emergency measures expired — 4.83 in 2022, 4.68 in 2023 — before stabilizing. At 4.75 in 2025, the country remains 0.60 points above its 2019 pre-pandemic level: the emergency receded, but a meaningful share of the protections stayed.
Put simply: half a century of change concentrated into three short bursts — 1992, 2008–2011, and 2020 — separated by long stretches where the national number barely moved.