Report: There’s Not A Single Place In The US Where A Minimum Wage Worker Can Afford A 2-Bedroom Apartment

Jun 21, 2018 by apost team

A new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) has put numbers and figures to the growing problem in the United States: the disparity between the minimum wage and the cost of living. There’s no place in the United States where a worker earning the federal minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom rented apartment. This counts states, municipalities, and counties.

To afford the rising cost of housing, these workers would need to work 122 hours every week all year with no breaks or vacations, according to the report. For context, there are 168 hours in a week. You would have to work 17 hours a day 5 days a week to meet that threshold.

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In order to work a more reasonable 40 hours a week and still be able to afford the relatively tiny two-bedroom apartment, workers would need to earn a nationwide average of $22.10 per hour, or about three times the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

The NLIHC got its findings by comparing the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment as recorded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in each state and city then found what they call a “housing wage” based on that. 

A housing wage is the amount a full-time worker has to make per hour for housing to take up only 30% of their income, as recommended by the HUD.

Hawaii was the state with the highest housing wage, clocking in at $36.13 an hour. The average family would expect to pay $1,879 on average a month in that area, and the minimum wage there is only $10.10 in contrast.

On the opposite end, Arkansas had the lowest housing wage at $13.84 with an average apartment cost of $720. The minimum wage there still fell flat, sitting at only $8.50.

The disparity only grows worse in metropolitan areas. San Francisco tops the list, requiring $60.02 on average to afford the two-bedroom rental.

Even when looking at one-bedroom apartments, things don’t get much better. The national average housing wage when looking at one-bedroom rentals is still over double the federal minimum wage at $17.90 an hour. Only 22 out of 3,000 counties in the US have a minimum wage that either meets or exceeds that area’s housing wage for a one-bedroom apartment, and that number falls to zero when looking at two-bedroom apartments.

The NLIHC calls out the Trump administration in its report, blasting it for proposing cuts to funding for federal housing assistance. The report claims that Trump’s proposed cuts and policies may "lead to the largest reduction in affordable housing and community development investments in decades."

How much of your income does your rent take up? How about your friends and family? Spread this around to see the shocking truth!