The figure is stunningly high.
It’s no shock that New York City’s housing market is out of control, but new figures show that a minimum wage earner would have to work 132 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom home.
That leaves just 36 hours a week to actually sleep in the home they’re working so hard to rent.
The typical household in the city must earn $34.40 an hour to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment at fair market rate, according to the new report by affordable housing advocates.
In the report, “Out of Reach,” released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, New York state is said to have the fourth highest “housing wage” in the country – and NYC is a lot more expensive than the rest of the state.
The report say the $34.40 per hour would be needed to pay rent and not spend more than 30 percent of income on housing. Minimum wage in New York state is $10.40 an hour.
Here’s the breakdown for how much you need to afford fair market rates for NYC:
- Studio: $29.12 per hour
- One-bedroom: $29.96 per hour
- Two-bedroom: $34.40 per hour
- Three-bedroom: $43.85 per hour
- Four-bedroom: $46.87 per hour
The findings illustrate just how “far out of reach” even modestly priced housing is for the country’s low-wage workers and most vulnerable populations, the study said.
Nationally, the average needed is $22.10 an hour for a modest two-bedroom apartment and $17.90 for a one-bedroom. That number ranges from as low as $13.84 for an Arkansas two-bedroom all the way up to a whopping $36.13 in Hawaii.
The five metro areas with the highest two-bedroom housing wages are Stamford-Norwalk, Connecticut ($38.19); Honolulu, Hawaii ($39.06); Oakland-Fremont, California ($44.79); San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California ($48.50); and San Francisco, California ($60.02).
“In no state, metropolitan area, or county can a worker earning the federal minimum wage or prevailing state minimum wage afford a two-bedroom rental home at fair market rent by working a standard 40-hour week,” the study said. “In only 22 counties out of more than 3,000 counties nationwide can a full-time minimum wage worker afford a one-bedroom rental home at fair market rent.”
Patch reporter Dan Hampton contributed to this report.
By Adam Nichols [Patch]