Two-thirds of the most common occupations in the country do not pay well enough to afford housing, according to a recent report issued by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition.
“Of the 25 most common jobs in the U.S., 17 pay median wages that fall below the housing wage for a one-bedroom rental and 18 pay below the two-bedroom housing wage,” the report, titled “Out of Reach – The High Cost of Living,” states. “These 18 occupations employ approximately 74 million people — nearly half of the entire U.S. workforce.”
These occupations include counselors, social workers, health technologists, home health and personal care aides, nursing assistants, orderlies, and psychiatric aides.
In Connecticut, a two-bedroom apartment would require a salary of about $74,000, based on dedicating 30% of income to rent.
That would translate, the report states, to a state housing wage of $35.42 per hour for someone working a 40-hour week, 52 weeks for the year, when the average renter wage in the state is $22.69, and the minimum wage is $16.35.
That $35.42 per hour puts Connecticut as the 11th most expensive when ranked by two-bedroom housing wage. California is number one, at $49.61 per hour.
“Affordable, decent-quality housing remains out of reach for many of the nation’s lowest-income renters. Despite modest economic gains for lower-income households in recent years, the rental housing crisis persists,” the report states. “Half of all renter households are now housing cost-burdened, paying more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities, and over a quarter are severely housing cost burdened, spending more than half of their income.”
Connecticut housing advocates point out that people who make minimum wage here would have to work 87 hours a week just to afford rent and utilities for a two-bedroom apartment.
Advocates from the Partnership for Strong Communities said this week that a minimum wage earner making $16.25 an hour would have to work 70 hours a week to afford a 1-bedroom apartment at a fair market rent price of $1,491.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development establishes specific geographic areas to determine income limits for housing programs, each called a HUD Metro FMR Area.
The housing wage for the Stamford-Norwalk HMFA is $50.19; $43.02 for the Danbury HMFA and $37.83 for the Bridgeport HMFA, according to the NLIHC’s report.
In an email to CT News Junkie earlier this week, Partnership for Strong Communities’s staff outlined what they considered major takeaways from the report including that 28% of Connecticut renters fall below 30% area median income (AMI) and 45% fall below 50% (AMI). In addition, rental housing is unaffordable for low-wage workers, according to the report.
The housing crisis also disproportionately impacts people of color, who — compared to white households, “are more likely to be renters, to have extremely low incomes,
and to experience cost burdens that put them at greater risk of housing instability.”
In its statement, the Partnership for Stronger Communities said Connecticut needs to: improve and expand funding for the state’s rental assistance program, invest in the creation and preservation of more affordable homes through the Housing Growth Fund and the Affordable Housing Program, and invest in the creation of all types of homes to ease the burden on the rental market.
Maribel La Luz, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Housing, said the state has many initiatives in place to help the state’s renters.
More than 14,000 families do receive monthly rental assistance, not including 11,000 that received assistance through federal funding during the pandemic, according to the department..
La Luz said the DOH has constructed more than 14,000 units since 2019 and there are more than 7,000 units under construction, with 80 percent affordable for incomes less than 50 percent AMI ($30,000 to $50,000 average income).
In addition, as of this week, La Luz said the department had provided more than 6,500 residents forgivable down payment assistance necessary to buy their first home from the state’s Time to Own program, which launched in 2022. Another 600 applications are pending, she said.
Last month, Gov. Ned Lamont vetoed a controversial housing bill that proponents in the legislature said would have addressed the shortage and high cost of housing in the state.
Lamont cited municipalities’ opposition to the fair share affordable housing target numbers and the elimination of minimum parking requirements for smaller apartment developments as the main reasons for the veto.