The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) shows that "affordable housing" is virtually nonexistent—and that in many states, even efforts to institute a minimum wage of $15 per hour would still leave many American workers struggling to find suitable housing that they could easily afford.
The study's authors calculated the hourly wage a full-time worker must earn in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment without spending more than 30 percent on his or her rent—as the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recommends.
In no state would it be possible for a worker to afford this modest housing arrangement while earning the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, the coalition found:
"A full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 needs to work approximately 122 hours per week for all 52 weeks of the year, or approximately three full-time jobs, to afford a two-bedroom rental home at the national average fair market rent. The same worker needs to work 99 hours per week for all 52 weeks of the year, or approximately two and a half full-time jobs, to afford a one-bedroom home at the national average fair market rent."
In just 22 out of more than 3,000 counties in the country, the report found, the report also found, a minimum wage worker would be able to afford a one-bedroom rental apartment at fair market rent.
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