This year, the median income for a family in the Metro Nashville area rose to $96,700.

This number comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is the standard developers must cater to if they want federal or state money. But, that number doesn’t represent half of Nashville families.

The federal government defines “affordable” as people spending at most 30% of their gross income on a place to live.

So, apartment complexes like North Lights off Trinity Lane get money from the federal or state government to make sure that’s possible, which means they must follow the government’s new median income number when determining rent.

When the new number came out, rent went up for some tenants in the middle of their lease, even if their income didn’t change. For one renter, it was a $135 increase.

The city government knows there’s a 50/50 split of households that fall below and above the AMI. Yet, it still follows the AMI income limits for local programs, like the Barnes Fund. That’s even though, Richel Albright with Metro Codes and Planning says, they know some residents don’t earn more money to meet the requirements.

“This is the reason we scaled the AMI targets for the Mixed-Income PILOT program to 75% and 50% of the AMI so that we can achieve deeper affordability,” she tells WPLN News via email. “As we continue to launch new tools, we will scale the income limits to better align housing attainability to actual income.”

The new area median income also impacts the income limits developers participating in federal or state programs can accept.

The area median income comes from the federal housing department looking at 10 middle Tennessee counties — including the wealthiest county in the state, Williamson. This helps out Nashvillians with higher incomes since it skews the numbers higher.

WPLN’s daily show This Is Nashville will discuss what housing affordability means and how the city is meeting the crisis on Thursday’s show at noon.