{"id":2621,"date":"2023-06-16T13:54:49","date_gmt":"2023-06-16T13:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/16\/minimum-wage-workers-would-need-to-log-104-hours-a-week-to-reasonably-afford-a-two-bedroom-rental-report-says\/"},"modified":"2023-06-16T13:54:49","modified_gmt":"2023-06-16T13:54:49","slug":"minimum-wage-workers-would-need-to-log-104-hours-a-week-to-reasonably-afford-a-two-bedroom-rental-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/16\/minimum-wage-workers-would-need-to-log-104-hours-a-week-to-reasonably-afford-a-two-bedroom-rental-report-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Minimum-Wage Workers Would Need To Log 104 Hours a Week To Reasonably Afford a Two-Bedroom Rental, Report Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There is no U.S. state, metropolitan area or county where a minimum-wage worker clocking 40 hours a week could reasonably afford a \u201cmodest two-bedroom rental home\u201d with an average fair-market rent of $1,486,\u00a0according to a report out Wednesday<\/a>\u00a0from an affordable-housing advocacy group.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s 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<\/a> for low-income households.<\/p>\n

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\u2014spending basically all of their waking hours at work, pausing only to sleep and eat quick meals\u2014to reasonably afford a two-bedroom home without devoting too much of their income to rent. There are 168 hours in a week.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cStable, affordable homes are a prerequisite for basic well-being, and no person should face the danger of losing their home,\u201d Diane Yentel, the president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said in a statement. \u201cYet 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo address the country\u2019s long-term housing affordability crisis, Congress and the Biden-Harris administration must protect and expand our country\u2019s vital affordable housing and homelessness programs, and implement robust tenant protections,\u201d Yentel added.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In a call with reporters Wednesday, Yentel added that restrictive local zoning rules\u2014a current focus of housing reforms<\/a>\u2014\u201cabsolutely\u201d inhibit the construction of new units and drive up costs by restricting supply. But more-inclusive zoning alone isn\u2019t enough to help the lowest-income renters, she said.<\/p>\n

Rents skyrocketed earlier in the pandemic, though growth in rental prices has slowed considerably since. Still,\u00a0the median rent level was about 25% higher<\/a>\u00a0in April than during the same period in 2019, Realtor.com said last month. Typical growth would be closer to about 3% a year.<\/p>\n

Housing-affordability advocates, meanwhile, often say that \u201crent eats first\u201d\u2014meaning 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<\/a>\u00a0that people have to choose between medication and housing bills, for example.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018good month.\u2019<\/p>\n

An extremely-low-income family of four making less than $2,500 a month\u2014putting them at the federal poverty level\u2014would 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.<\/p>\n

For some families, it\u2019s 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 \u201cgood month.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

The wage needed to afford a modest two-bedroom nationwide without spending more than the recommended 30% of one\u2019s income on rent is $28.58 per hour, the report said; for a one-bedroom, it\u2019s $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\u2019t afford a one-bedroom if they\u2019re working one full-time job.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0the legacy of redlining<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0persistent occupational segregation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNationally, the median wage of a full-time white worker is adequate to afford a one-bedroom apartment at fair market rent,\u201d the report said, \u201cbut the median wage of a full-time Black or Latino worker is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Minimum-Wage Workers Would Need To Log 104 Hours a Week To Reasonably Afford a Two-Bedroom Rental, Report Says<\/a> appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com\u00ae<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GETTY IMAGES There is no U.S. state, metropolitan area or county where a minimum-wage worker clocking 40 hours a week could reasonably afford a \u201cmodest two-bedroom rental home\u201d with an average fair-market rent of $1,486,\u00a0according to a report out Wednesday\u00a0from an affordable-housing advocacy group. That\u2019s true whether the worker makes the federal minimum wage of…Read More→<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}