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Monday, July 19th, 2021

For Minimum Wage Workers, Rent Is Now Unaffordable in Every County in America

Author:     Hannah Levintova
Source:     Mother Jones
Publication Date:     JULY 16, 2021
 Link: For Minimum Wage Workers, Rent Is Now Unaffordable in Every County in America
Stephan:   America's wealth inequality is so great that the uber-rich can build their own spacecraft, and a minimum wage worker can't afford to rent even a tiny apartment. Here is the data. Except for a small minority of Democrats, wellbeing is not a consideration in the American Congress. Only profit and power matter. I think we should be ashamed as a country at our unwillingness to address this issue.

There is now not a single state or county in the US where a minimum wage worker on a 40-hour week can afford a two-bedroom home at the fair market rent, according to a report published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition this week. In 93 percent of US counties, such full-time minimum wage workers can’t afford a one-bedroom apartment, either.

“The enduring problem of housing unaffordability requires bold investments in housing solutions that will ensure stability in the future,” said NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel in an emailed statement. “Without a significant federal intervention, housing will continue to be out of reach for millions of renters.”

To crunch these numbers, the NLIHC relied on a common metric for housing affordability: a home is affordable if it requires workers to pay up to 30 percent of their monthly income in rent. Using this metric, NLIHC’s report found that workers would need to earn a little less than $52,000 per year—or $24.90 per hour—to afford a modest two-bedroom home, or at least $20.40 per hour to afford a one bedroom. The federal minimum […]

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