TIL if you live in Pennsylvania and make minimum wage you'd have to work 105 hours a week to afford a "modest" one bedroom rental.
TIL if you live in Pennsylvania and make minimum wage you'd have to work 105 hours a week to afford a "modest" one bedroom rental.
#OOR23 shows how difficult it is for renters to find affordable housing. Find out how much a renter must earn to afford a modest home at https://nlihc.org/oor
This site has these sorts of stats for each state.
I agree with the sentiment. There's a large gap between minimum wage and housing. I don't think anybody expects to afford an ultra luxurious three-story corner penthouse loft from working full time at Taco Bell, but I do think it's reasonable to expect to be able to afford a simple, safe, one-bedroom in good repair.
I own so I'm completely out of touch with rent prices. I know what they were when I was renting 10+ years ago but things are a lot different now. I went on apartments.com to see if I could prove this study wrong.
TL/DR: I could, but ... not really.
My criteria was: (1) under $1002 / month, (2) in a safe area, (3) with free parking, (4) within a 10-minute drive of at least two supermarkets, and (5) within a 20-minute drive of most of our metro area. I found multiple apartment complexes that met all those criteria, along with multiple independent rentals. All of the complexes were within the $900 - $1000 range. So ... yes, technically I just proved the survey wrong. But that $100 savings doesn't really exist.
First, you need a car to get from there to here. That's non negotiable. Our mass transit here sucks and you're either going to be two hours early or 15 minutes late, and that's assuming you have a regular, consistent schedule to work with. So let's assume you buy a sensible 10-year-old Civic / Corolla / whatever with 90k miles in immaculate condition. I found a few options nearby for $12k, and let's assume you talk the dealer down another $2k, you have a $2500 downpayment, and there's no tax because we're in magical la-la land. Let's also assume you got zero percent interest because it's 2003 again for some reason. A 60-month loan would be $125, or an additional 4 hours a week.
Next, let's talk groceries. Let's say you are exceptionally frugal and can prepare nutritious, filling meals for yourself with only a $200 / month grocery spend. That's an extra 7 hours of work per week.
Next, gotta put gas in that car. Your friend, who happens to a magical elf, magically conjures up gasoline just for you for the low, low price of $2 / gallon. Wow! Combined with your extremely thrifty vehicle (and your commute, which also just happens to be entirely on interstate at 40 MPG), you only go through 10 gallons of fuel a week. At $80 / month, that's an extra 3 hours of work per week.
Don't forget car insurance! Your driving record is spotless, your FICO score makes TransUnion weep like that statute of liberty from The Onion's political cartoons, and your driving is angelic. Your full-coverage premium (because you don't want to get hit with surprise bills) is only $75 per month. You pay in full to avoid fees, so that's another two hours of work each week.
Did I mention car maintenance? You do all your own oil changes, filter changes, tire rotation, everything, because you're a frugal bastard. I don't even know what oil costs because I'm fortunate enough to be able to pay people to do that for me, so just for the sake of making things easy, let's say
one bananaten dollars per week. Heck, let's just round that down an hour of work per week.Oh and let's make utilities super simple. That apartment includes water, sewer, trash, cable, and internet. You only have to pay electric and gas. And because it's exceptionally well insulated and you're very frugal with your electricity, your combined electric and gas bill is only $75 / month, averaged year round. That's only two hours of work per week.
You use an MVNO to save a fortune, and your phone is only $20 / month. That's a half hour of work per week.
And I know it's exorbitant, but you have the audacity to want to go out once in a while. You splurge by getting the dollar menu at McDonald's (which doesn't exist anymore BTW) so you budget an extra $30 / month on "fun money". That's an extra hour a week.
So with those extremely unrealistic and lowball numbers, you're looking at an additional 20-ish hours of work each week. To afford that barebones and frankly impossible lifestyle, you're looking at working 125 hours a week. That's 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, with no downtime ever. And again, I'm using impossibly low numbers here and making a lot of assumptions that will never happen.
That's before taxes. That assumes you never get sick. You never splurge on luxuries like "plates" or "clothing". Your car lasts forever. You're never a victim of crime. Your rent never increases. Inflation never happens. And you never take time to go on interviews for a better paying job.
So yeah, I technically proved the study wrong, but not in any remotely good way.
It's late, so I could be making dumb mistakes here, but I think the numbers are at least loosely factoring in those sort of expenses. It's not 100 hours/week just to cover rent, it's 100 hours/week to actually maybe afford that rent.
$7.25/hour x 40 hours/week x 4 weeks/month = $1160/month gross income
Assuming a maximum of 1/3 of gross income goes to housing, that's $383/month available for rent. The site calculates $377/month as "affordable rent" for the minimum wage worker, so for the sake of the argument, I think my calculations are close enough.
So, that means for every hour worked, about $2.39 is going towards rent ($7.25x0.33).
$2.39/hour x 106 hours/week x 4 weeks/month = $1013, which is just over their "1-Bedroom Fair Market Rent" rate of $1002/month.
If you can't afford basic necessities on minimum wage, the wage is too low and the job doesn't deserve to exist IMO.
Especially when so many of the largest companies are profitable and making more and more money. This system is unsustainable. It also causes societal unrest which leads to extremism. I don't understand the mindset behind it, the increasing polarization as things get more and more unaffordable seems to support the theory.
Nonsense, you just need to pull harder on those bootstraps. Pull 'em all the way to the moon.
Pull until you get The Wedgie of Wealth, then pull some more!
Lol
You're right. I would love to see legislation that ties the minimum wage to cost of living.
And have it go area by area. I don’t need an obscene amount to live here in Appalachia. A living wage for me would be a poverty wage for someone from California.
It would probably require too much thought for folks in power.
What qualifies as "basic necessities"?
I'm not sure minimum wage has ever been enough for most people to afford an apartment on their own.
Certainly in the early 90s, even in a low cost of living area, I was working 2 jobs (one part time but a bit over minimum wage) in order to share a 500sqft, 1br apartment with a friend.
And part of the problem with trying to set a level of basic necessities (or a 'living wage') is that you have to account for a TON of external factors.
For example, nobody is building affordable, reasonably sized apartments or houses any more. They only want to build 2000sqft+ houses, or 1000+sqft apartments with all the trimmings and amenities. That certainly raises the cost of living.
By way of comparison, my grandparents raised 3 kids in a 998sqft 2-story duplex. It's wasn't large but it was a good family neighborhood with a park across the street. And they had 1 smallish (for the era) car. So why does everyone need a bajillion square feet and 2 cars, including a massive SUV to raise their 1 or 2 kids these days? (2 cars I get with both parents working these days, but the trucks and SUVs I see many low income families driving is ridiculous).
And is it fair for the minimum wage to have to be set to a rate that subsidizes the builders who choose to only build that bigger, more expensive housing.
We definitely need changes in the way this is all handled, but it's not a simple thing. To truly solve the issue will require significant changes in our social structure and philosophy.
In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
Throughout industry, the change from starvation wages and starvation employment to living wages and sustained employment can, in large part, be made by an industrial covenant to which all employers shall subscribe. It is greatly to their interest to do this because decent living, widely spread among our 125, 000,000 people, eventually means the opening up to industry of the richest market which the world has known. It is the only way to utilize the so-called excess capacity of our industrial plants. This is the principle that makes this one of the most important laws that ever has come from Congress because, before the passage of this Act, no such industrial covenant was possible.
Franklin Roosevelt, on the creation of a minimum wage.
Food, shelter, healthcare, transportation, utilities, and some money for travel and entertainment.
Plus the ability to get financing or financial aid to pay for education and training, but those can be paid for by the government or an employer.
"Bare necessities" is at a minimum 150% above the poverty line. Anything under that most of the benefits kick in. If you can find an advocate to help you thru the processes.
damn, and that's just the rent, not even factoring in food and clothing. wow.
No, they did factor in food and clothing. See QualifiedKitten's response in the comments.
Pull up those fucking bootstraps! /s
You guys got straps?!?
You were given free boots?!?
I'm sure another 40 years of Democrats and Republicans will fix it.
After all, they've done a pretty good job so far.
Dont start that "both sides are the same" shit.
This is why we have roommates when we're young and dumb.
Eight years ago I could afford a one bedroom apartment by not having a car. That is not possible anymore. My $650 bachelor pad is now $1400 and wages have only slightly gone up. There’s now a generational divide between people in their late 20s and early 20s.
Ye that's what my friend's and I are doing but we still don't have a lot of spending money. My car needs fixed and I don't want it. I don't want a car at all. It's way too expensive period and when shit goes wrong it's expensive to fix. I'd like a street legal dirt bike because it's cheaper, better on gas, and parts for it are cheaper. But a $10,000 I'm able to get approved for even a $26,000 car I was able to get approved for since it was my first car. But a $5,700 bike is considered a luxury item and I can't get approved for it. I'm trapped in spending more money than I want to or get a second job to afford going to my first
$5700 for a bike is a bit of a luxury, that'll buy you a 2024 Honda Rebel DCT last I looked. I bought an '04 Shadow last year for $2000, maybe aim lower?
The reason for the difference is that it's a lot easier to destroy and steal a motorcycle, leaving nothing for the bank to repossess.
Remember Americas prison population issues. That follows people their entire lives, and getting decent work becomes a major problem.
How many people are working for minimum wage in Pennsylvania?
Almost no one. Either they pay you just a little over minimum or well under the minimum
I don't know exactly. That site says 437,146 people make below $30k/yr, whereas $7.25 works out to about $15k/yr.
Lmao Pennsylvania is rough. Jawn is worse the further in the sticks you are. 2.1k in my town for a two bedroom.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico looking pretty sane. What's the catch? There's always a catch.
I mean, I guess there's hurricanes
But the president will come throw paper towels at you afterwards, so no worries.
Job market.
There isn't always a catch. Governance is often based on compromise and corruption runs rampant, so often there will be shitty things thrown in to appease corporate donors and conservative politicians, but sometimes the government just does something good without also doing something bad.
Ban zoning and let the free market over build. Start a government construction office to build housing awarding apartments on a lottery+income level system.
Either way would work and if your local political leadership is not talking about this it is time to vote the bum out.
I haven't looked at other places in a while since I am content where I am. Just looked up my options if I were to move out and YIKES! I knew it was bad but not this bad.