Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
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Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#2I wonder how much California and New York averages are bumped by due to places like San Francisco and New York City.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#3The article doesn't address why the hourly wage for 2-bedroom is relevant in relation to say, a 1-bedroom, studio, or mansion. Looking briefly at the BLS data, it seems that there are about equal numbers of single- and double-earner households. It's not clear to me that a single-earner household should expect to be able to rent a two bedroom apartment.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#4Being from Arkansas, I always thought our housing prices were crazy low. When I was in university there, I paid something like $450/mo for a two bedroom, 1000 square foot (92 square meters) apartment.
Then I moved to Seattle and pay 6x as much per square foot. That's to be expected, I guess. Seattle is much more desirable than Arkansas.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#5The article doesn't address why the hourly wage for 2-bedroom is relevant in relation to say, a 1-bedroom, studio, or mansion. Looking briefly at the BLS data, it seems that there are about equal numbers of single- and double-earner households. It's not clear to me that a single-earner household should expect to be able to rent a two bedroom apartment.
I'm guessing picking two-bedrooms is a proxy for families: one for parent(s) and one for child(ren).
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#6The article doesn't address why the hourly wage for 2-bedroom is relevant in relation to say, a 1-bedroom, studio, or mansion. Looking briefly at the BLS data, it seems that there are about equal numbers of single- and double-earner households. It's not clear to me that a single-earner household should expect to be able to rent a two bedroom apartment.
So then by your logic, all the single income families are consigned to only living in one bedroom apartments? This seems like a logic fail to me.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#7The article doesn't address why the hourly wage for 2-bedroom is relevant in relation to say, a 1-bedroom, studio, or mansion. Looking briefly at the BLS data, it seems that there are about equal numbers of single- and double-earner households. It's not clear to me that a single-earner household should expect to be able to rent a two bedroom apartment.
How dare single parent families expect to live somewhere decent.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#8The article doesn't address why the hourly wage for 2-bedroom is relevant in relation to say, a 1-bedroom, studio, or mansion. Looking briefly at the BLS data, it seems that there are about equal numbers of single- and double-earner households. It's not clear to me that a single-earner household should expect to be able to rent a two bedroom apartment.
Presumably, a 2 bedroom apt. would be quite relevant to single parents.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#9The idea that you could calculate a meaningful number like this for the entire state is absurd. Perhaps if you could drill down into county or zipcode this would be more useful.
Re: Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State
#10This sort of stuff rubs me the wrong way.
I live about 20 minutes outside of Pittsburgh. When I graduated college 6 years ago, I held down a restaurant job while doing an internship that would eventually lead to my first full-time job in my field. I had a roommate who worked at a hotel. We found a two-bedroom apartment (a house split into 3 units) that was going for $425/month plus utilities. Because we split, I had to pay about $300/month to keep a roof over my head. I think I was making $8/hr, so the first week of the month mostly covered my living expenses (not including taxes and the like of course). Very different than the 78 hours that shows for PA.
Anecdotal, I know, but the point being that if you're willing to make tradeoffs, you can find a way to live. My friend in Manhattan takes on two roommates to make his rent affordable. After my spouse and I got a house, we rented out our spare bedroom for a time to help pay down school loans and provide an affordable space for friends. I always remind myself that my grandmother was one of 13 children in a 3-bedroom home, and that many immigrant families of her generation had a boarder to help cover costs.
There are always edge cases that need to be dealt with compassionately - the single, unskilled mom with a few kids, etc. But the underlying assumption of articles like this seems to be that minimum wage should get you a 2BR apartment, and that's a premise that I don't agree with.