Minimum-Wage Workers Would Need To Log 104 Hours a Week To Reasonably Afford a Two-Bedroom Rental, Report Says

There is no U.S. state, metropolitan area or county where a minimum-wage worker clocking 40 hours a week could reasonably afford a “modest two-bedroom rental home” with an average fair-market rent of $1,486, according to a report out Wednesday from an affordable-housing advocacy group.

That’s true whether the worker makes the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour or a higher city- or state-based minimum wage of $15 or more, the National Low Income Housing Coalition said in an annual report on unaffordable rental prices for low-income households.

Even when accounting for those states and cities where the minimum wage exceeds the federal standard, the average minimum-wage worker still needs to log a whopping 104 hours a week—spending basically all of their waking hours at work, pausing only to sleep and eat quick meals—to reasonably afford a two-bedroom home without devoting too much of their income to rent. There are 168 hours in a week.

Minimum-wage workers have to clock 86 hours a week for a smaller one-bedroom place, as only 7% of counties nationwide, not including Puerto Rico, have housing cheap enough for a full-time minimum-wage worker to afford, according to the report.

“Stable, affordable homes are a prerequisite for basic well-being, and no person should face the danger of losing their home,” Diane Yentel, the president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said in a statement. “Yet too many low-income renters are facing worsening housing instability as housing costs rise and pandemic-era safety net programs expire. Evictions are increasing, and homelessness is rising, just as House Republicans work to slash funding for key affordable housing solutions.”

“To address the country’s long-term housing affordability crisis, Congress and the Biden-Harris administration must protect and expand our country’s vital affordable housing and homelessness programs, and implement robust tenant protections,” Yentel added.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition called for sustained investments in new affordable housing to address the crisis, the preservation of existing affordable rental homes, universal rental assistance and more.

In a call with reporters Wednesday, Yentel added that restrictive local zoning rules—a current focus of housing reforms—“absolutely” inhibit the construction of new units and drive up costs by restricting supply. But more-inclusive zoning alone isn’t enough to help the lowest-income renters, she said.

Rents skyrocketed earlier in the pandemic, though growth in rental prices has slowed considerably since. Still, the median rent level was about 25% higher in April than during the same period in 2019, Realtor.com said last month. Typical growth would be closer to about 3% a year.

Housing-affordability advocates, meanwhile, often say that “rent eats first”—meaning people will spend what they have to on shelter at the expense of other needs. As a result, rising prices have some tenants making sacrifices: One affordable-housing leader in the Fargo, N.D., area recently told Valley News Live that people have to choose between medication and housing bills, for example.

The report described a hair braider and mother of a 13-year-old in Memphis, Tenn., who spends almost 80% of her income on rent and utilities in a ‘good month.’

An extremely-low-income family of four making less than $2,500 a month—putting them at the federal poverty level—would wind up putting 60% of their income toward rent if they lived in a modestly priced two-bedroom, the National Low Income Housing Coalition said, leaving them with little left over to spend on food, healthcare, child care and other needs.

For some families, it’s even more dire. The report described a hair braider and mother of a 13-year-old in Memphis, Tenn., who spends almost 80% of her income on rent and utilities in a “good month.” Another mother who worked as a certified nursing assistant until she became pregnant with her third child and contracted COVID-19, after which point she switched to a part-time, minimum-wage job, said in the report that she spends almost 50% of her income on rent, though she also shares a place with another single parent of two children.

The wage needed to afford a modest two-bedroom nationwide without spending more than the recommended 30% of one’s income on rent is $28.58 per hour, the report said; for a one-bedroom, it’s $23.67 per hour. And although the average hourly wage for renters, at $23.68, is currently higher than the minimum wage, almost half of wage earners can’t afford a one-bedroom if they’re working one full-time job.

People of color are even more deeply impacted by the gap between housing prices and wages, as they are disproportionately likely to be renters, have extremely low incomes, and be concentrated in the lowest-paying occupations due to factors including the legacy of redlining and persistent occupational segregation.

“Nationally, the median wage of a full-time white worker is adequate to afford a one-bedroom apartment at fair market rent,” the report said, “but the median wage of a full-time Black or Latino worker is not.”

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