Wage Required to Afford a 2-Bedroom Rental in Every State

a reply to: Pants3204

So - roommates who both pay part of the 'rent'. And if they have kids, this 'couple', then day-care slashes into their wages, too.

A mile from a major university is housing for STUDENTS - and very few students can afford to live on their own. My daughter lived off-campus but a 5-minute walk away from school at a major university. She had roommates. 3 or 4 of them most of the time. And her roommates didn't pay 'the rent', their well-heeled PARENTS did. (Her dad and I did not pay the rent).
A pair of adults who have to work full-time minimum wage to pay the rent can't afford to have children, then. And students can't work 40-hours a week AND go to class.

a reply to: Pants3204 I assume you mean 80 hrs a week and 2 wage earners.+ utilities? Gas and electric is expensive. One might want internet, though there are ways to disconnect from normal TV now. You might want to go out once a month or vacation once a year. It does not add up. If you have even one child, you need 2 bedrooms and have costs associated with a child. + food, gas, car insurance, car payment (some need a car now and can;t save up to buy 2nd hand if public transportation is spotty where they live). + health insurance )though those people may qualify for madicaid and/or food assistance depending on the state).

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

True. If you can't afford kids, then don't have them. Simple as that.

If you are living with roommates and splitting the rent, you can work far less than 40 hours a week to meet rent. My point is that the numbers mentioned in OP don't match reality, unless they are taking into account some large, non obvious expenses in addition to rent, because clearly $2500/month is not a realistic price for a one bedroom apartment.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs I was making $17/hr in 1998. It hasn't gone up much since. It does not cut it. I have a home now and the monthly payment is not a ton more than my rent was, including taxes which are escrowed). But now I have a bigger power bill, a water/sewer bill, a lawn care bill, snow plowing bill and the cost of everything else has gone up since 1997. You are fully correct. I am trying to live on about the same I was living on 17 years ago while the price of something as simple as cheese has quadrupled.

a reply to: reldra

I'm just using the numbers from the OP. I assumed 85 hours per week total from both people.

That being said, $2500/month (min wage @ 85 hours/week) is probably a realistic assumption for TOTAL monthly expenses, but not rent, which is my argument.

Additionally, if you are living off of minimum wage the first thing you should probably do is ensure that you do not have any children.

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: Pants3204
$7.25/hr @ 85 hours a week is about $620/week, or $2500/month. How is this not enough to rent a single bedroom apartment? Where are you living that has rent this high, and maybe the better question is, why are you still living there?

You in the military sport? Or single? Lots of free, there…

In Silicon Valley,

Median rent in "techdom"

I think it's averaged out over the entire state - I know I make more then the wage stated to rent a two bedroom and where I live (and not nearly as expensive as Silicon Valley), I can't afford a two bedroom on my own.

originally posted by: Pants3204
a reply to: BuzzyWigs

True. If you can't afford kids, then don't have them. Simple as that.

If you are living with roommates and splitting the rent, you can work far less than 40 hours a week to meet rent. My point is that the numbers mentioned in OP don't match reality, unless they are taking into account some large, non obvious expenses in addition to rent, because clearly $2500/month is not a realistic price for a one bedroom apartment.

I had one child when I was married and there were 2 incomes and I was getting regular raises and fully paid medical and dental at a large corporation. Then the economy went to hell. You tell my daughter I should not haver had her. Because, jeez, I obviously can't afford a child. Maybe I should adopt her out? I think she may be too old for that, though. I have rented 1 bedroom to a boarder since I bought this house. It barely makes a dent.

a reply to: reldra

Why do you have a lawn care or snow plowing bill?

And, what have you done to increase your wage over the last 17 years?

a reply to: FyreByrd

I can't afford a two bedroom on my own.

Most people can't. That price is between three and four thousand here.

They think we are all software kings…

a reply to: reldra

Obviously if you had a child before being struck by some sort of disaster which plunged you into poverty then you can't go back on the past, but I'm speaking to the people who live on minimum wage, pop out babies, and then complain they can't afford to live.

a reply to: intrptr

The simple solution would be to move somewhere more affordable.

a reply to: Pants3204

Well, we aren't actually talking about those with children - the numbers don't reflect that, I don't think.
At least the report didn't say anything about it that I could see.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

This report is interesting to me because I think it reflects more on total cost of living than housing alone.

originally posted by: Pants3204
a reply to: reldra

Why do you have a lawn care or snow plowing bill?

And, what have you done to increase your wage over the last 17 years?

I live in buffalo, we can get 24 in of snow in one day. And then , again, 2 days later. Too hard to keep up with, I have bad knees. Same with the lawn, has to be mowed, it it goes over 5 inches (which it can in 6 days) I get a fine from the town.

I finished my four year degree and started my own business. It is still about the same amount of money coming in. Maybe a little more in fall and spring when this business picks up, but that only covers the carried over gas bill from the winter or the carried over electric bill from the summer. There are 2 seasons where I live...frozen and hell. Frozen was worse than usual this year with more snow, like many parts of the country--but if Buffalo is feeling it, that is BAD. Hell started here about May 1, earlier this year.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
A report issued by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (which they do every year), shows the hourly minimum wage required to be able to afford a 2-br RENTAL in every state of the union. My state is 35th. For my county, the wage is $17.13. And my county is considered to be "the poor people" by the snooty suburbans. Who, by the way, are prisoners of their McMansions.

What is it in your state? (And this is Fair Market Rent - what people are actually paying who are not in 'housing projects').

An excerpt from the report:

Housing is Out of Reach
Millions of Americans struggle to find affordable rents.

In order to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment in the U.S., renters need to earn a wage of $19.35 per hour. In 13 states and the District of Columbia they need to earn more than $20 per hour. The Housing Wage for a two-bedroom unit is more than two and a half times the federal minimum wage of $7.25, and $4 more than the estimated average wage of $15.16 earned by renters nationwide. Find the data for your state, nonmetropolitan or metropolitan area, or county by clicking on the map above.

Keep in mind, this is NOT talking about "Home Ownership" (the dead American Dream) - it is talking about RENT.
Although I do have a mortgage for this house I bought (signed up for) 15 years ago, my mortgage payment is less than the average "rent" for my area. By $100 a month, and that INCLUDES insurance and property taxes. I won't own it outright for another 20 years....and the total cost is about 5 times what the original purchase price was.

The Stats Don’t Lie

In no state can a person working full-time at minimum wage afford a one-bedroom apartment at the Fair Market Rent.
Every year since 1989 Out of Reach has shown the gap between wages and rents across the country and the gap continues to grow as the cost of housing increases more quickly than earnings. A renter earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour would need to work 85 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom rent at the Fair Market Rent and 102 hours per week to afford a two-bedroom Fair Market Rent.

But, "heavens no! we can't increase the federal minimum wage!
No! Absolutely not!" squawk those in high cotton with no money woes of their own.

And I mean, REAL money woes, not someone whose six-figures (or hell, a million dollars! Or 5 billion!) a year seems inadequate to them.

What is your county's average rent?
What do you think about this?

And this doesn't even come close to demonstrating how hard it is to live in the most expensive urban areas within the most expensive states.

For example, NYC and San Francisco are by far the most expensive urban areas, but due to cheap rural areas in both states the state average is far lower.

Try being a low income or even lower middle income person in SF or NYC. They say that 50% of renters in NYC are what is called rent-burdened, as even in the ghetto the rents are ridiculous.

I live in one of the ghettos of NYC, and for a marginal three bedroom apartment we are paying $817 each a month for a room, and that is considered a GREAT deal. This is in Brooklyn.

In Manhattan such a place would be easily $1200-1500 per room (in a three bedroom).

They have studios in Manhattan and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, going for $2-3000 easy, and those aren't even the high class ones at all. Those ones are $10,000 a month.

a reply to: Pants3204

Yeah. Where you're likely to be surrounded by criminals and/or there are no jobs at all.

Little, tiny burgs and villages where there are only 5 mom-n-pop shops that don't need "help." Commute 2 hours or more to where your job is.

The closer you get to where there are jobs, the higher the rent.

And what is REALLY ironic about that report, if you scroll all the way down past the dozens of news-links to articles -- is that it was "SPONSORED" by JPMorgan Chase.

What the-------------!!! Yeah, I was scanning for a "how we compute our data", but didn't see one on the report page. Maybe in their "About" section or another "Methodology" section.???

???

Yeah - guess who holds my mortgage (who bought it from the lending underwriters) - CHASE.
AND, when I called them to request a lower interest rate - citing that I had NEVER been late on a payment, EVER - they just flat refused to help me, and denied they were part of the Federal program to help home-owners (which was a lie). I was then advised by one of those "help lower your bills" places that it would cost me $3000 to hire an attorney to fight them.

originally posted by: Pants3204
a reply to: intrptr

The simple solution would be to move somewhere more affordable.

Stuck in the Burbs, can't afford it means can't afford to leave either.

a reply to: intrptr

Exactly.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: intrptr

Exactly.

Land of the Free, if you can afford it. They like us stuck in one place. They can keep track of us and shorten the service pipe line. Big cities are traps we refer to as civilization.