A report from the National Low Income Housing Collation says there's nowhere in the United States where a full-time worker earning the prevailing minimum wage can afford a modest two-bedroom apartment.

Out of Reach 2016: No Refuge for Low Income Renterscalculates the housing wage – the hourly wage someone working full-time, 40 hours a week, would need to earn in order to afford a modest apartment without spending more than 30% of household income on rent and utilities. The report found that a full-time worker in America today must earn on average $20.30 per hour to do this. To afford a modest one-bedroom apartment, a full-time worker needs to earn $16.35 per hour on average.

WWW.NLIHC.ORG/OOR © 2016 National Low Income Housing Coalition
WWW.NLIHC.ORG/OOR
© 2016 National Low Income Housing Coalition
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A worker earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour would need to work 2.8 full time jobs, or approximately 112 hours per week for all 52 weeks of the year, in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment at HUD’s Fair Market Rent (FMR). If this worker slept for eight hours per night, he or she would have no remaining time during the week for anything other than working and sleeping.

The numbers for South Dakota aren't quite so stark, but not great. In South Dakota an hourly wage of at least $13.77 is required to afford a modest two-bedroom rental. Or, to put it another way, someone in South Dakota would need to work 50 hours a week at our minimum wage of $8.55/hr to afford the same.

Someone in Sioux Falls would need to work 53 hours a week at South Dakota's minimum wage to afford a one-bedroom rental in town, 67 for two-bedroom.

That's a full and part-time job in order to have a place to live. That's not including food, child-care, medical care or transportation.

To afford housing in Sioux Falls a person would need to make between $11 and $15 an hour.

You can see the full report and proposed solutions at nlihc.org/oor/.

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