If you’re being paid minimum wage, forget about being able to afford a two-bedroom apartment. In fact, forget about being able to afford a one-bedroom apartment. According to the annual report on wages and housing costs from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there’s nowhere in the country either of those things can come close to happening for workers making the federal minimum wage and working a mere 40 hours a week:
The 2017 national Housing Wage is $21.21per hour for a two-bedroom rental home, or more than 2.9 times higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. The 2017 Housing Wage for a one-bedroom rental home is $17.14, or 2.4 times higher than the federal minimum wage. A full-time worker earning the minimum wage needs to work 117 hours per week for all 52 weeks of the year to afford a two-bedroom rental home or 94.5 hours per week for a one-bedroom rental home.
But states and cities have made a lot of progress in recent years, with many having minimum wages far outstripping the federal level. Maybe the situation is better in those places? Somewhat, but nowhere near enough, as it turns out:
Despite a minimum wage higher than the federal level in 29 states, the District of Columbia, and a growing number of local jurisdictions, in no state, metropolitan area, or county can a full-time minimum-wage worker afford a modest two-bedroom rental home. In only 12 counties can a full-time minimum-wage worker afford a modest one-bedroom rental home.
And there’s a significant piece of bad news for the future:
Six of the seven occupations projected to add the greatest number of jobs by 2024 provide a median wage that is not sufficient to afford a modest one-bedroom rental home.
Registered nurses are the lone exception on that list, while customer service representatives, nursing assistants, retail salespeople, home health aides, personal care aides, and food prep and serving workers all fall short at current wage levels.
This is not sustainable, but the Republicans currently in control of the federal government are only interested in making it worse, not better.