Report: Minimum wage in US fails to cover rent
May 22, 2015, 6:20 AM | Updated: 6:47 am
According to a report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, renters in cities across the United States would need to make an average of $19.35 per hour working full-time hours in order to afford a two-bedroom unit.
For those at home wondering, that’s $4 more than the estimated average wage for American workers.
In fact, per the report, there isn’t a single state in the country where a person earning either a state or federal minimum wage can afford a one-bedroom apartment listed at market-rate. Believe or not, a minimum wage worker would need to work 86 hours per week in order to cover rent for a one-bedroom unit.
In Arizona, the average per hour wage needed for affording a two-bedroom apartment was calculated at $16.87, ranking 31st nationally in terms of affordability.
The most expensive state in the United States for renters is Hawaii, where occupants are required on average to make $31.61 an hour in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment. That means a Hawaiian household would need to work more than four full-time jobs at minimum wage to cover rental costs.
Researchers arrived at their findings using 30 percent of a given household’s income as the figure to determine how much money a resident would need in order to cover rental costs at a reasonable level.