Home is where the rent’s affordable which, for many Americans, is an increasingly thin portion of the housing market.
New data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition has revealed the depressing reality that close to half of the American workforce does not make enough money to rent a one-bedroom apartment.
The situation has been made significantly worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, during which US rents rose while many Americans fell behind on rent payments.
The problem is a huge threat to national happiness and well-being, researchers believe.
“The kind of tight budgets that especially low-income renters face when they’re cost-burdened can lead to serious harms,” National Low Income Housing Coalition research analyst Daniel Threet told the Guardian.
In order to afford a one-bedroom rental, the new data reported, workers must earn approximately $20.40 an hour, where the median US wage is only $21 an hour — and the federal minimum wage is only $7.25 an hour.
Tenant rights activists hold a demonstration outside the home of New York State Sen. Brian Kavanagh to protest what they claim to be inadequate legislative relief for renters during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to call for the cancellation of rent, Feb. 28, 2021 in the East Village. Corbis via Getty Images
While it’s true that large, more unaffordable cities impact the data somewhat, researchers found that there is not a single county in America where an individual working full time at a minimum wage job can afford a two-bedroom rental.
The discrepancy in low average incomes and high rents was the leading financial issue people faced during the coronavirus pandemic, researchers wrote. “COVID-19 was an economic catastrophe for many households, disproportionately people of color, precisely because so many already could not afford their homes,” the report stated.
To address the issue, analysts suggest more rental help for those who need it, and more affordable housing, too.
“Addressing the long-term housing affordability crisis in this country requires increasing rental assistance to all who need it, as well as expanding and preserving the affordable housing stock,” they wrote.
