As reported in Packaged Facts’ “Pet Population and Ownership Trends in the U.S.,” MRI-Simmons Fall 2024 survey data indicate that 50% of U.S. households (134 million) own dogs or cats, 38% own dogs, and 24% own cats — figures unchanged from the prior-year fall 2023 survey.
What has changed, as noted industry-wide, is that pet population trends have been favorable to cats rather than to dogs, reversing the historical pattern for the U.S. market. Less recognized is that this trend pre-dates the COVID-19 pandemic, though pet ownership patterns were inflected by the pandemic period.
Between 2018 and 2024, household ownership rates are down for having dogs (from 42% to 38%) and for having dogs but not cats (from 30% to 26%). Dog ownership rates did partially rebound between 2020 and 2021 due to pandemic-era adoptions — rising from 40% in 2020 to 41% in 2021 — but then reset at a 38% rate for 2022 through 2024 (see Table 1).
TABLE 1: While dog ownership in the U.S. has seen a slight slip over the last several years, cat ownership has been stable and slightly rising — a historic shift in the country’s pet ownership patterns.
In contrast, ownership rates have been stable-to-slightly-rising for cats — at 23% in 2018 vs. 24% in 2024 for having cats overall, and at 11% in 2018 vs. 12% in 2024 for having cats but not dogs.
Why the shift? Housing affordability declining
The current housing affordability crisis has been dampening dog population growth in particular, given that home ownership (and especially single-family home ownership) strongly correlates to dog ownership. And there is no easy way out of this crisis, given that housing affordability is a complex issue framed not only by housing sticker prices but by wage trends, mortgage interest rates, home owners’ insurance rates, the amount of housing stock for sale in relation to local demand, local zoning issues and restrictions, and building material costs for new housing construction.
Based on American Community Survey data, Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (December 3, 2024) reported that housing affordability deteriorated in 2023, affecting record numbers of people:
- 42.9 million households (or 33%) were cost-burdened, spending over 30% of their income on housing.
- 21.5 million households (or 16%) were severely cost-burdened, spending over 50% of their income on housing.
Breaking out these figures by home owners vs. renters, roughly equal numbers are cost-burdened, though the percentage who are cost-burdened is twice as high among renters:
- 21.4 million home owners (24%) were cost-burdened, with the figure rising above 70% among home owners with a household income of less than US$30,000.
- 22.6 million renters (50%) were cost-burdened, with the figure rising past 80% among those with a household income of less than US$30,000.
Being cost-burdened as a lower- or moderate-income renter strongly reduces the likelihood of accumulating savings for home ownership (and especially single-family home ownership) in a time of historically high prices, high mortgage rates and escalating home insurance premiums. And the relationship between home ownership/housing type and pet ownership is clear, particularly in the case of dogs: 45% of home owners overall and 44% of those living in single-family homes have dogs, compared with 26% of renters overall and 20% of those living in multi-family housing.
Household make-up also affects pet ownership
Along with home ownership and housing type, household composition and income strongly affect pet ownership rates. Among U.S. households overall, 50% own dogs or cats, but the rate rises to 66% for married couples with children at home, 58% among households with adult women as well as adult men, and to 56% among households with an income of US$100,000 or more.
By personal demographics, 61% of non-Hispanic whites have a household dog or cat, as do 59% of Gen Xers, who are in the peak life stage for pet ownership. Generationally speaking, moreover, the most recent MRI-Simmons data may give cause for optimism. In 2024, as was the case in 2021, trends in the total number of dog-owning household trends were positive for both Gen Z and Millennials, and in combination outweighed dog ownership attrition among the previous generations.