Minimum wage workers can't afford rent anywhere in America

[BigmanPigman]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/15/homes/rent-affordability-minimum-wage/index.html

There is no state, county or city in the country where a full-time, minimum-wage worker working 40 hours a week can afford a two-bedroom rental, a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition showed.

A full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a one-bedroom rental in only 7% of all US counties — 218 counties out of more than 3,000 nationwide.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25.

But the report showed that a worker would need to earn $24.90 per hour in order to afford a two-bedroom home at Fair Market Rent. And a $20.40 "housing wage" would be needed for a one-bedroom. Fair Market Rents are government estimates of what a person should expect to pay for a modest home in their area.

A housing wage is the amount a worker would need to earn to afford a home without spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities.

*More at link

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Scary.

I will add that even when minimum wage was relatively better, back at the beginning of my working career, affording an apartment was still not very easy, depending on where you lived. And yes, it is much worse now.

[BigmanPigman]

2. After 1980 everything got out of wack and and stayed that way...

thanks a lot Reagun!!!! The final killing off of unions and BS trickle down crap equals economic disaster for the middle class. Hello 1%!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. So true.

What was so scary about the 1980 election was that the youngest voters, the up and coming GenXers, were tending to vote for him. I was appalled.

I was also taking classes at a nearby university, and I'd noticed that the younger students were very different from me and far more conservative. It was quite strange.

[BigmanPigman]

5. I turned 18 in 1980 so that was my first time voting.

I should have known then that my life would be different from my parents'. I come from generations of Dems in my family and I was very disappointed. At art school we heard he was shot and everyone around me was glad. We all hated him...whoever said artists are "ditzy" is wrong.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. I'm a bit older.

Our lives, at least in the past few centuries, are always different from our parents' lives.

All four of my grandparents emigrated from Ireland to the United States at the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th centuries. They married, and had my parents and their siblings. Mom became a nurse, a big deal in the 1930s, and Dad attended college, an even bigger deal in that generation. Your personal history is, of course, different.

My oldest brother seems to be a Trumper, but I don't have much contact with him. He's been a conservative Republican for some years now, and was always something of a jerk. Personally, I refuse to have contact with such people, and since he lives near Washington, DC, and I live in New Mexico, and he no longer travels because of health issues, it's easy to avoid him.

Aside: Because of all four grandparents being from Ireland, when I was a little girl the elderly aunts would look at me and say (please say this in your head with an Irish brogue) "Ahhh, she has the map of Ireland on her face." Well, I grew up in this country, and even if we are only looking at people from Europe, there's still a lot of variance. Not to mention the many wonderful people from other places.

Well. In 1972 I went to Ireland for the first time. OMFG! I finally understood what those elderly aunts were saying. Every single person I saw looked EXACTLY like my aunts and uncles and cousins.

In 1989 there was a family trip to Ireland: Mom; five of us six siblings; two spouses who were also Irish American; plus a cousin and her (can you guess?) Irish American husband. Every time we'd split up and try to reconnect, I'd have a lot of trouble picking out us from the general blend of Irish.

[BigmanPigman]

7. My childhood friend is 100% Irish

but out of 7 girls and finally a boy, none of her siblings had red hair and freckles while she was covered in them. She still is.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. Ahhh. We all had freckles but no red hair, alas.

I married a man whose grandparents came from Eastern Europe. Go ahead and guess his ethnicity.

Anyway, when my oldest son was little, and I'd be on a play date with him, I'd warn the other moms NOT to let their kid get into a head-bumping contest with him, because he's always win. Half Irish, half Jewish, what do you expect?

When he was about three years old I was in an ice cream shop with another mom and her kid, a year younger than mine. The two boys started racing around and yes, you've figured it out, they went head to head and crashed down. Her son got up, clutched his head, and staggered over to his mom. Mine got up and resumed racing around. Luckily, the other mom already understood my son's remarkabely hard head, and while she soothed her son, found the whole thing hilarious.

[BigmanPigman]

11. Ha! That's hysterical, I can picture it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. Yes. It was as hilarious as you are picturing.

As I said, the other mom likewise found it highly amusing.

[2naSalit]

3. That's right!

[Hestia]

9. this article sums up why rural people have an impossible time leaving their areas

Paid for land and home but only minimum wage jobs (or better if there is still a factory open in their area). I'm not saying that they have the best homes to live in (though, sometimes they do) but why would they want to leave a paid for house making minimum wage to move to a populated area, make minimum wage, and have to decide between rent, food, medications, car repair (if they have one), etc.

They truly have to decide as to what to do. It is why a lot of rural people are dying of alcoholism and suicide (see NY Times Mag about women dying in Okla. due to real lack of choices) due to taking care of parents, grandparents and grandchildren because their kids are dead from heroin or meth overdose or in prison. They are exhausted and worn to a nub and don't have time or internet or even cable tv to keep up with politics from lack of funds to pay for such luxuries if they are available.

This is where broadband could help these women (yes, I am focusing on the women; the men are mask- & vax-holes and abandon their families after knocking up the women, pressuring the women into having his child because if she loves him she would or is terrorized into having children) because they can take a class or two a semester and get their certifications in childcare, etc. (Here, you cannot work or open a daycare without licensing, which is in some ways is dumb, especially if you are only watching 1-2 child/ren. And no, you cannot work on your license and work in daycare at the same time for OTJ training. Anything to keep the impoverished under some busybodies thumb.) Of course, childcare is only one choice for a career choice.

Bill Moyers has two interesting documentaries - one starts in the 1980s, when raygun closed factories and left millions in poverty and follows (IIRC) 5 families; second, is what happened to those same families 30 years later after Bush was installed as pseudo-emperor. Eye opening.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. Because I've moved fairly often over the years,

I'm not good at understanding why people are so reluctant to relocate. I have no sense of a childhood home, because of moving. I have no sense of "This is the home my kids grew up in" because of moving. And at that, it wasn't nearly as much as someone in the military puts up with. Actually, my two sons did mostly grow up in the house in Overland Park, KS, but because I moved there as a 42 year old adult, it never became precious to me. So when my marriage came to an end, I found it easy to relocate to New Mexico and start a new life.

It helps me that my mother, when I was 14 years old, packed up the five kids still at home (oldest brother was in the army) and moved us from northern NYS to Tucson, AZ, to escape an abusive, alcoholic husband. She was a nurse, and knew she could get work anywhere, even though then (1962) nurses were paid a pittance. In fact, they could not collect unemployment back then if they lost a job. But she did the right thing by us, and her example has stayed with me some 60 years.

[OldBaldy1701E]

14. Interesting

I also moved a lot as a child, and I felt I missed out on that tradition of the 'house that I grew up in'. I wish I had had a place that felt stable like that.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. What an interesting difference between us.

Too bad we can't sit down over coffee or drinks and discuss this. Why you feel like you missed out, and I can shrug off the notion of a tradition of 'house that I grew up in' would be fascinating to talk about.

[OldBaldy1701E]

16. I agree

But, you don't want to come up here except in the 'summer', which lasts about 90 days anyway. And, we are almost out of it by now. (I am joking. The warmer weather lasts a little longer than that, assuming June has more than ten days above 60F.)

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. Are you kidding? You are in Minneapolis! My third favorite place I've ever lived!

Only my current home, Santa Fe, and Boulder CO beat it out. Because I've lived in lots of places, third place is not as bad as it might seem.

We moved from Minneapolis to Phoenix, and I never quite forgave my ex for that.

Or you could someday pass through my city and we could meet.

[OldBaldy1701E]

18. That would be great

And, you are welcome to visit back here. Personally, I cannot wait to get away from this place. (I cannot speak for the rest of the state, as I am in Minneapolis. I cannot even really say anything about St. Paul, as I have not really spent any time there. But, after five years in this city, I can tell you that day will not get here soon enough. Some places are just not for some folks. I just wish I had known this before I agreed to move up here.)

[Warpy]

10. That has been true for a couple of decades, where has CNN been?

Fiscal conservatives have refused to raise the minimum wage year after year because backward thinking economists told them wages were inflationary, while largesse to the richest was not. It's why the stock market is booming while the country is falling apart and people are getting sick and dying younger from poor nutrition.

By all possible metrics, this country is failing its people. Even the ones who think they're doing well are kidding themselves--unable to put their kids through school and unable to save adequately for retirement, often unable to make major purchases without taking on added debt.

It has failed the people doing the essential jobs that keep everyday life functioning the most.