If you work in the fastest-growing occupation in the United States–as a personal care aide assisting elderly and disabled people–you probably earn a little more than minimum wage. But that’s not enough to afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in the country. In more than 99% of American counties, it’s not even enough to make a one-bedroom affordable.
A new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition maps out the wage a full-time worker needs to make for a modest apartment or rental house to be affordable in each county in the U.S. (“affordable” is defined as spending less than 30% of your income on housing costs). On average, you’d need to make $21.21 per hour to rent a two-bedroom and $17.14 for a one-bedroom. The mean American wage is $16.38 an hour. The federal minimum wage is $7.25.
Federal housing assistance programs are underfunded, but the report makes the point that we don’t lack the resources–the country spends around $200 billion each year on housing subsidies. It’s just that the majority of this goes to the rich in the form of tax deductions on mortgage payments. 83% of the money the government spends on housing goes to households making more than $100,000 a year, and more than three-quarters goes to families making more than $200,000. One proposal now in Congress: reduce the deductions for those earning the most, and use the savings to help the 55 million households that earn less than $50,000 a year afford a place to live–particularly the 20 million Americans who now live in “housing poverty,” meaning they can’t afford to buy enough food, pay medical bills, or meet other basic needs after they pay for housing costs.