Source: HuffPost

A full-time, minimum-wage worker can’t afford even a modest one-bedroom apartment in 93% of U.S. counties, according to a new report.

And nowhere in the U.S. can a person working a standard 40-hour workweek at the federal, state or local minimum wage afford a modest two-bedroom rental, according to the annual report released Wednesday from The National Low-Income Housing Coalition.

The group considers someone to be able to “afford” rent if they don’t have to spend more than 30% of their income on housing.

The report found that to be able to afford a modest two-bedroom place, workers in the U.S. would have to earn $24.90 per hour, or $20.40 an hour for a one-bedroom.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. And the average renter in the U.S. earns only $18.78 per hour, according to the report.

Taking into account local minimum wage rates, the average minimum-wage worker would have to put in nearly 97 hours per week (more than two full-time jobs) to afford a modest two-bedroom rental, or 79 hours per week (nearly two full-time jobs) to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

“One full-time job should be enough,” the report says, urging the federal government to raise the minimum wage, provide more rental assistance, fund the construction of more affordable housing and implement stronger renter protections.

Amid the affordable housing crisis, racial disparities abound: Over 40% of Black and Latinx households pay more than 30% of their income on rent, compared with 25% of white households.

And as the COVID-19 pandemic led to the massive shuttering of businesses and job losses, people of color were more likely to have lost income. By March 2021, 39% of white people had experienced a loss of household income, compared with 49% of Black and 58% of Latinx people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Last September, in response to the pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a nationwide moratorium on evictions. This is set to expire at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, more than 13 million renters reported to the U.S. Census Bureau in June that they had “slight” or no confidence in being able to pay July rent.

Sarah Ruiz-Grossman is a HuffPost reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering news and politics, including poverty, immigration and racial justice.


ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.

Donate
Donate
Leave A Reply

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Our EIN# is #22-2959506. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

We do not accept funding from advertising or corporate sponsors.  We rely on donors like you to do our work.

ZNetwork: Left News, Analysis, Vision & Strategy

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

THE WIND CRIES FREEDOM

The Wind Cries Freedom, the new book from Z co-founder Michael Albert, is a sweeping oral history of a future American revolution.

Through thirty interconnected chapters, it draws out the strategies, failures, turning points, and hard-won wisdom of a movement that called itself the Revolutionary Participatory Society. These are not the polished memoirs of politicians: they are the unfiltered accounts of people who organized in neighborhoods, hospitals, universities, stadiums, courthouses, and places of worship, and kept a shared vision alive through cynicism and exhaustion.

The result is speculative political fiction that reads like history: messy, human, and quietly hopeful in the way that only real experience and long thought can produce.

Get your copy and peruse more features on the book’s website below.

“Read it, argue with it, but don’t look away. The future it recalls is one we must still fight to deserve.”

Yanis Varoufakis

“The most unusual and intriguing combination of prophecy, manifesto, and movement building manual that I have ever encountered.”

Bill Fletcher Junior

“This work fills a huge gap in our social movement literature.”

Cynthia Peters

This is your article this month.

We’re glad you keep coming back. If Z’s work has informed, challenged, or inspired you, that’s no accident: there are no paywalls, no ads, and no billionaire owners here, and there never will be. Independent media survives because readers choose to support it.

Billionaires fund their own media. We fund ours. Help us reach 1,000 sustaining donors:

Number of donors689
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Already a sustainer? Click here and we won’t ask again. Thank you!

Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.

Sound is muted by default.  Tap 🔊 for the full experience

CRITICAL ACTION

Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.

If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.

Independent media is not disappearing because the ideas are weak.

It is disappearing because platforms reward speed, outrage, and algorithmic visibility over thoughtful analysis.

More than 100,000 people read Z every month, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. It takes fewer than 1 in 100 of them to fund all of it: 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone, and build what comes next.

Number of donors689
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Subscribe

Join the Z Community – receive event invites, announcements, a Weekly Digest, and opportunities to engage.

Exit mobile version