Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom rental
About one in seven Americans fell behind on rent payments as housing costs continued to increase during the pandemic
Nearly half of American workers do not earn enough to rent a one-bedroom apartment, according to new data.
Rents in the US continued to increase through the pandemic, and a worker now needs to earn about $20.40 an hour to afford a modest one-bedroom rental.
The median wage in the US is about $21 an hour.
The data, from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, shows that millions of Americans – from Amazon warehouse workers to cab drivers to public school teachers – are struggling to pay rent.
For the poorest Americans, market-rate housing is out of reach in virtually all of the country. And it’s not just big cities skewing the data. A two-bedroom rental – a reasonable size for a family – would stretch the budgets of renters in most US counties:
The federal government has long used 30% of income as a threshold for affordable rent. For affluent households, this still leaves plenty of money for essential purchases, but research has found that low-income families begin to cut back on necessities when housing costs exceed the 30% threshold.
Minimum wage isn’t enough to afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in the US
For those earning the lowest wages, the housing situation is even more dire.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, but some states, counties and cities have established higher minimum wages – the highest being $16.32 an hour in San Francisco.
>>>Still, there isn’t a single US county where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford a modest two-bedroom rental. <<<
It’s worth noting that relatively few Americans – about 250,000 – earn the federal minimum wage. Another 865,000 workers earn less than that amount, largely because this group includes tipped workers who can legally be paid less than the minimum wage (their tips are supposed to make up the difference).
But this data shows that even considering places with a higher minimum wage, the legal wage floor in every US county is not enough to afford a modest two-bedroom.
Rent in most US metros has increased since the pandemic
Even as the pandemic threatened many Americans’ ability to find work, the cost of housing continues to increase. . .But since February 2020, average prices in 82 of 101 of the top US metro areas increased more than 5%. Among the cities with the largest increases are Boise, Idaho, (+21%), Riverside, California, (+17%), and Phoenix, Arizona (+17%).
SEE RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG for rents in Mesa that were provided by Apartment Leasing.com
======================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment