Just for the locals…
Posted by Michelle Moquin on May 31st, 2016
…Or anyone even thinking of moving to the U.S.
Here’s the housing deets from the Huff Po if you’re in the market to rent:
Here’s How Much Money You Need To Afford Rent In Every State
For people earning the minimum wage, the answer is “way more than you make.”
Housing costs are out of whack with incomes across the country, making the task of finding an affordable place to live a real struggle, even for many full-time workers.
A report titled “Out of Reach,” out this week from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, highlights the mismatch between wages and housing costs at the state, county and metro levels. The results are consistently dire: in no locality in the country can people who earn the federal minimum wage afford the typical two-bedroom apartment.
The NLIHC determined how much a person working full-time would need to make to comfortably afford fair market rent. They call that the housing wage, or the hourly wage needed so only 30 percent of a person’s income goes toward rent. Households spending more are considered “cost-burdened” — and the extra expense means they cut spending on food, health care and retirement savings.
Nationwide, the housing wage for a two-bedroom apartment is $20.30 hourly (or $42,240 annually). That means someone earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 would have to work 112 hours a week to afford the typical rent.
“If this worker slept for eight hours per night, he or she would have no remaining time during the week for anything other than working and sleeping,” the report notes.
Here’s how much a worker would need to earn to afford rent on a two-bedroom apartment in each state:
The “Out of Reach” report determined rent prices in each location using U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates of the fair market rent (including utilities) in each area for rental units. HUD uses two-bedroom units for its standard estimates because they are most common and most reliable to survey, the report states.
The housing wage required to afford a two-bedroom rental is over $30 an hour in the most expensive metro areas. Half of the top ten are in California, where a growing housing crisis has contributed to skyrocketing rents.
The San Francisco metro area’s extreme housing costs seem slightly more reasonable, considering typical renters there make far more than the national average.
But in neighboring Oakland, there’s a much wider gap. To afford the fair market rate of $2,100 for a two-bedroom apartment, a person would need to make over $84,000 per year, more than double the actual income of the average Oakland renter. And that still might not be enough — professionals like teachers and firefighters are being priced out of the city, and officials have considered ways to help fund more housing for families making around $100,000.
Renting has increased dramatically in the last decade, with nine million more new renter households today than in 2005. But supply, as well as government spending on affordable housing, hasn’t kept up, resulting in rising rents and extra strain for low-income families.
“Between 2003 and 2013, the number of low cost units renting for less than $400 increased by 10 percent, but the number of renter households in need of these units increased by 40 percent,” the report states. The authors say the new data underscores the need to both raise the minimum wage and increase federal funding for affordable housing.
Housing is a basic need the government should invest in, HUD Secretary Julián Castro wrote in an introduction to the NLIHC report.
“Our nation can’t fulfill any of our major goals — whether it’s tackling inequality, improving healthcare, keeping neighborhoods safe, or making sure every child gets a good education — unless we also focus on housing,” Castro said.
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June 1st, 2016 at 4:34 am
This country has degenerated into a place run by corporations for the rich.
June 1st, 2016 at 4:39 am
What’s worst is that those rents are artificially high because of the inflated market values. They will crash as they did in the past when the super wealthy are ready to take their profits.
The rest of the country will be left to crawling out of a net set of foreclosures.
June 1st, 2016 at 4:43 am
All of this was caused because my crazy people decided to vote color rather than in their own best interest. So bat crazy white candidates, as long as they were white and preceded their bat crazy ideas with code words that they intended to give the country control back to white people, were supported by whites.
The result is the courts are stacked with white judges who are for hire. Hence we get all these insane laws that benefit the rich at the expense of the middle class and the poor.
June 1st, 2016 at 4:44 am
There is no more middle class SCOTUS got rid of that with Citizens United.
June 1st, 2016 at 4:48 am
I agree with you Georgia. The republican party is a bastion for the ignorant,or racist, or white male, organized to appeal to their religious intolerance, racial bigotry, by greedy rich whites looking to exploit the country via politics.
June 1st, 2016 at 4:57 am
Rent, food, education, health care, whatever, the masses have to purchase from the wealthy is control either by a monopoly or an oligopoly.
We are forced to accept whatever they charge. The price of gas is a prime example. Even though everyone knows it is artificially high because of corruption and gouging, no one in the political arena will challenge them.
Why because of Citizens United. It gave political power to corporations that the ordinary citizen can’t compete with. Politicians need money to run campaigns( that is another issue).
Since the bought and paid for five(thank god one of the bastards is dead)gave the rich the power to donate unlimited amounts to candidates they don’t need us anymore. Thanks to Citizens United all they need is to sell out to a corporation or wealthy billionaire and they get all the money they need to campaign.
We have been fucked by white greed from the wealthy and racists white males who line up to suck their tiny dicks.
June 1st, 2016 at 5:02 am
I am fed up with my colleagues arguing they are voting republican because this country needs a change. The republican party prevented a change Obama promised because they coveted the White House over helping the middle class get back on their feet.
This is the only country in which its people(white people) will seriously entertain the concept that if you can’t afford health care you shouldn’t have it.
While the hypocrites are doing it they are poor women to have babies they can’t afford to give health care to.
June 1st, 2016 at 5:12 am
If we are honest, we will admit that white people have fucked this country up. They continue to do it by as is often said voting color over common sense.
Yet, at every lunch I have to listen to them rant about what the OTWs(meaning blacks) are doing to the country. I know if I weren’t there that OTW issue would include Chinese Americans also.
The arrogance of a race of people who since the inception of this country have been in total control of the Executive(accept Obama), Legislative, and the Judicial branches of America is appalling.
How much more control do they need? It is always something else they need to control to fix America’s problem. Look in the mirror you disgusting pieces of shit.
The problem with America is you. By that I mean; your greed, your insistence that the rest of us accept your religious beliefs, your racial prejudices, your feeling of entitlement, and your inability to feel the angst of others.
Thank god I am not a white man, if I were I would be advocating the extermination of your species as a cancer upon this nation.
June 1st, 2016 at 5:13 am
Every time I check in on this blog some nigger, slope or jew is badmouthing white people.
Get the fuck out if you don’t like how white people run their country.
June 1st, 2016 at 5:15 am
Yes, white males generally vote republican. But not all of us do it because we are racists. Some of us actually believe that smaller government and giving states the right to solve their own problems is the best form of government.
June 1st, 2016 at 5:17 am
My rent is so high, I feel that if I miss one pay check I will be out on the street.
June 1st, 2016 at 5:26 am
I am a white male and I don’t intend to vote republican this time. I will reluctantly support Hilary.
My wife thinks I am voting Trump. She is volunteering to solicit for his campaign here in Kentucky. Our daughter was forced to go to California to get an abortion. She couldn’t get one here. My wife supports the anti-abortion candidates here. But she also supported our daughter’s wish to get an abortion because at 23 she didn’t feel she was ready to have a baby by her boyfriend.
I was against it. I am against abortion. My wife is a hypocrite at best and murderer at worst. She went with my daughter and happily returned with our daughter sans her baby. She was three months pregnant before she decided to abort.
So here she is back in a state that forces the poor women who can’t afford to go or send their daughters to satan’s lair to get an abortion supporting candidates that insure that continues.
When I confronted her, she smiled and said this was an exception. I despise this woman. If I could I would take her out to the shed and beat her within an inch of her life.
She hates Hilary, so I will support Hilary. At least Hilary isn’t a hypocrite.
June 1st, 2016 at 5:28 am
Liu#8, if you don’t like it here. Go back to China. See how you like living under a communist run regime.
June 1st, 2016 at 5:39 am
Really, Tony#10, you are just so full of shit. You like states rights because on a state level the majority can vote away the rights of the minority.
You like that because in this country, for now, whites have a majority in every state.
As for your small government issue. The only shrinking of the government republican administrations have ever done is to shrink the enforcement arms of government that were put in place to stop fraud, deceit, poisoning of the environment, and the people by corporations bent on profit above all else.
Google it republican administrations controlling the White House, have out spent democratic ones by an almost two to one margin in every administration.
Check out your god ( reagen) he spent more than all the other presidents that came before him combined. Google it you lying sack of putrid shit.
You are voting republican like the rest of your tiny dick white males because you want to continue getting preferential treatment from the system.
June 1st, 2016 at 5:43 am
Trump will send all those who are not for this country back to where they came from.
I am voting for the WALL. We need to keep those raping, thieving bastards out
of our country.
June 1st, 2016 at 6:31 am
13 Kent, Lui said she was Chinese American why should she ‘go back’ anywhere?
15. Oscar that was the line that I thought signaled the end of Drumpfs stupid stump speech, it’s a pathetic line at best and you bought it…wow, it’s time for women to rule, you men (most, not all) are sounding very irrational.
Rents are squeezing people, we need a revolution, no one regardless of background should have to live under the kind of stress where one paycheck might leave them homeless.
Food, shelter and clothing (add healthcare) are basics of life and should be easy enough to provide.
Luv, Zen Lill
June 1st, 2016 at 7:50 am
Why the few want so much at the expense of the rich is baffling. I guess they don’t understand the true meaning behind the French Revolution.
I am voting for Hilary, if you want a SCOTUS to continue being bought by the rich, then stay home or vote republican.
June 1st, 2016 at 7:52 am
I agree Zen Lill, the basics are something everyone in America should expect to be able to provide for themselves and their loved ones.
June 1st, 2016 at 7:55 am
Kent said that Zen Lill because he believes that this is a white boys country. Not a white woman or OTW person’s country, we just live him to serve them. That’s why trump appeals to them, he feeds their bullshit back to them.
June 1st, 2016 at 7:57 am
I came to America for Bosnia. Does that make me a non citizen. I have earned my citizenship. I will vote Hilary because I am tired of the race bating by the republicans.
June 1st, 2016 at 7:59 am
Zen Lill@16, Trump says what he thinks white America wants to hear. He is counting on the white vote, voter suppression and the apathy of the OTW