Workers with full-time positions making minimum wage cannot afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment in any state in the U.S., according to a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Those same workers also cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in 93% of the country, the report found. The coalition considers a rental amount affordable if it’s less than 30% of a person’s income.
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The average hourly worker currently earns $18.78 per hour, the report said.
To afford a two-bedroom apartment, workers would need to make at least $6 more. Making minimum wage, the average employee would need to work 97 hours a week to meet the rent.
“One full-time job should be enough,” said the report, urging Congress to raise the minimum wage.
More than 40% of Black and Latin families spend more than one-third of their income on rent. For white households, that is only 25%.
More than 13 million renters doubted their ability to pay rent in July amid the pandemic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A federal moratorium on evictions expires at the end of the month.
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