Full-time minimum wage workers can't afford rent anywhere in the US

Article is really &quot;minimum wage workers cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment while only spending the recommended 30% of their income on housing.&quot;<p>There&#x27;s a lot of assumptions there. Assumes minimum wage workers should not have to get by with a single bedroom and a couch in their own place. Assumes minimum wage workers should not have to spend more than 30% of their income on housing.<p>Now maybe that should be our policy. I just don&#x27;t think the headline should be &quot;can&#x27;t afford rent&quot; until we&#x27;ve made a concrete policy decision as a people that supports the premise that they should be able to afford it.

When you make housing an investment, by definition, it has to become less affordable in the future.<p>Until a country decides to stop making policy to support this notion that a basic need should be an appreciating asset and not a depreciating one like food, transportation, etc, this completely unsurprising trend will continue. It is a strange world we live in where we collectively believe that a basic need should appreciate in value over time.

It&#x27;s strange how as technology has improved, the cost of housing hasn&#x27;t really gotten cheaper.<p>TVs, computers, even cars have decreased in price and improved in quality, but college education and housing...not so much.<p>You&#x27;d think there&#x27;d be $30,000 small, but affordable houses by now.<p>There&#x27;s some fuckery afoot.

I&#x27;ll save you a click: people with below median income cannot afford median two bedroom housing. I don&#x27;t really see how this logically could <i>not</i> be true, unless minimum wage was the median income or rent was commodified.

First let me say that I agree with raising the minimum wage and affording more people a &quot;livable&quot; wage.<p>With that out of the way, let&#x27;s start dispelling some myths.<p>First, building houses inflation-adjusted actually hasn&#x27;t gotten more expensive [1]. It&#x27;s basically the same in real terms as almost 50 years ago.<p>What has changed is two things:<p>1. Land has gotten more expensive;<p>2. Houses have gotten substantially bigger; and<p>3. Real wages have been largely frozen, particularly on the low end, for the last 40 eyars.<p>So I was curious where the stats for rents came from and in Appendix B of the Full Report you&#x27;ll see it uses the HUD FMR (Fair Market Rent) stat [2].<p>I was curious about this for several reasons. A description like &quot;average house rent&quot; raises a lot of questions like:<p>- What sorts of properties does this include? Free standing houses? Townhomes? Condos?<p>- What sort of &quot;average&quot; is it? Mean or median? You wouldn&#x27;t want houses in the Westside distorting &quot;average&quot; rent for LA county, for example.<p>&gt; HOW IS FAIR MARKET RENT CALCULATED?<p>&gt; Fair Market Rent is generally calculated as the 40th percentile of gross rents for regular, standard quality units in a local housing market. This excludes low-quality units, already subsidized units, and units that have been built in the last 2 years. FMR rent data is typically taken from recent move ins rather than long-term tenants, as long-term tenants generally receive a lower monthly rental rate. FMR includes core utilities, like water and power, but doesn’t include internet and other optional services.<p>Isn&#x27;t this a bit misleading? Like, it&#x27;s data from recent move ins so it&#x27;s people who have decided to or have needed to move and what they&#x27;ve been willing and able to pay.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aei.org&#x2F;carpe-diem&#x2F;new-us-homes-today-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-living-space-per-person-has-nearly-doubled&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aei.org&#x2F;carpe-diem&#x2F;new-us-homes-today-are-1000-s...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hud.loans&#x2F;hud-loans-blog&#x2F;what-is-fair-market-rent" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hud.loans&#x2F;hud-loans-blog&#x2F;what-is-fair-market-ren...</a>

Well, if minimum wage earners can&#x27;t rent then perhaps migration needs to drop. Or is that sacred because then population won&#x27;t keep going up because migration is what is propping up population these days?<p>Multiple demographics are essentially crashing. Plenty are below replacement <i>right now</i>.<p>Should be interesting to see what happens over the next 20 years after reliance on migration finally changes voting trends.

Here are some facts on how many people actually earn minimum wage. It helps put emotionally fueled opinions into perspective.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;opub&#x2F;reports&#x2F;minimum-wage&#x2F;2017&#x2F;home.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;opub&#x2F;reports&#x2F;minimum-wage&#x2F;2017&#x2F;home.htm</a>

From my own personal experience living on minimum wage, the biggest benefit would actually be the removal of mandatory overtime pay past 40 hours. I wanted to work more, but had to juggle schedules of multiple part time jobs. I effectively had less time and money specifically because that regulation exists.

minimum wage work used to be for teenagers living at home. The terrifying thing to me is that we have a large quantity of adults without any appreciable skills that would lend them to work which raises them out of minimum wage.<p>most of us started at or near minimum wage living with roommates etc. The question to me is what is preventing these people from achieving career growth?

The ultimate irony here is JPMorgan Chase &quot;generously&quot; sponsoring this study. Yawn.

Vocation schools used to be the ones that ripped people off. Now they have to guarantee 70% job placement and is a good way to jump start a career in a trade.

1. Government sets&#x2F;increases minimum wage.<p>2. Price of everything increases since people have more money, without corresponding increase in wealth&#x2F;value.<p>3. Government: <i>pikachu face</i>

I could explain why and how this &quot;study&quot; is deliberately crafted misinformation, but I assume you&#x27;re all smart enough to read the article for yourselves and come to the same conclusion. At least a few commentators have figured it out. Have you?