Global Courant
Minimum wage workers shouldn’t bother finding a two-bedroom apartment — anywhere in the U.S.
According to a new federal report, “In no state, metropolitan area or province in the U.S. can an employee earning the federal or prevailing state or local minimum wage afford a modest two-bedroom rental home at a fair market rent by a standard 40 hour work week.”
The Report “Unreachable”. reveals in grim terms the financial challenges tenants face, particularly in California.
A renter in California must earn $42.25 an hour to afford a two-bedroom rental unit, the highest figure in the nation, according to the new study. In contrast, the median hourly wage for renters in California is only $33.67.
Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington were the next four most expensive states after California, with renters required to earn at least $35 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment.
In California, 33-year-old Cristian Morales is an example of the struggle hourly wage earners face to get decent housing.
He makes $21 an hour as a laundromat at the Hilton Pasadena. The job, which he has held for nearly five years, can be stressful. “We have to be moving all the time and sometimes there isn’t time to take our 10-minute breaks,” he said.
The hotel is often understaffed, Morales said, which sometimes means a 14-story chute is packed with bedding “all the way to the sixth floor” before it can get there.
Along with his wife and five children, Morales lived in a rental apartment in North Hills until 2020, when they could no longer afford the apartment. “Rent in LA went up, it’s super up. The groceries are gone, he said.
The family moved in with Morales’ in-laws in Baldwin Park, where three of the children live in the front house, while their grandparents and the rest of the family live in the back house.
“Of course I want my own place,” said Morales. “It’s not the same living with your father and mother-in-law.”
The eight most expensive counties for renters in America were all in California, including Santa Barbara and Orange counties in Southern California, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition report.
In the four most expensive counties — Santa Cruz, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo — a renter must earn more than $60 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment.
Santa Cruz County, where the average renter’s income was estimated at $22.39 per hour, had the largest discrepancy between actual income and the income required to afford a two-bedroom home. According to the study, the average renter earned only 34% of the income needed to afford such an apartment.
“The affordable housing crisis has worsened in recent years as the COVID-19 pandemic, unusually low housing vacancy rates, skyrocketing rents and record inflation have exacerbated the financial insecurity of low-income renters,” the report states.
California is the most renting state in the country, with 45% of homes occupied by renters. Within the state, Los Angeles and San Francisco counties stand out, where rates are 62% and 54%, respectively.
Apartment owners also speak out about renting.
“We’ve been screaming for years and years that the lack of supply and new housing construction is leading to this increase,” said Fred Sutton, a spokesman for the California Apartment Assn., a group that represents the rental housing industry.
“The cost of operating housing has skyrocketed in recent years,” he said, noting that rent control, inflation and operating costs are factors in adjusting rents.
“Housing is increasingly scarce in the state, and some local municipalities have made it increasingly difficult to obtain,” Sutton said. He pleaded for fewer rules for housing.
In all but three of California’s 58 counties, the median wage for renters was not enough to pay a two-bedroom rent. The three counties where wages were high enough were all expensive rental locations in the Bay Area: San Francisco, Santa Clara, and San Mateo.
The report states that “renters are facing the consequences of a long-standing trend in which rents have risen faster than wages.” Between 2001 and 2021, median rents increased by 17.9%, while median household income increased by 3.2%, according to the report.
In Arkansas, the cheapest state in the country for renters, a renter can afford a two-bedroom apartment with an hourly income of $16.27. That’s about a third of the cost in California.
The Dakotas, Mississippi and West Virginia, all with hourly wages between $16 and $18, round out the five cheapest states. Minimum wages in all five states are well below California’s $15.50 rate: Arkansas is the highest, at $11, and North Dakota and Mississippi are the lowest, compared to the federal level of $7.25.
For Morales, affordable housing for his family is a utopia. “In reality, we checked it about a year ago, but it is too expensive. It’s not like we can move to a single – I have five kids.
“It’s super hard to even find a place where we can all fit in and have a little bit of freedom,” he said.
Higher wages can make all the difference. Morales is a member of the hotel union Unite Here Local 11 and plans to strike this weekend along with thousands of others, calling for higher wages.
“We are ready, we are motivated and we believe we deserve what we ask for,” he said.
