Renters in Ohio need only $13.79/hour to live ‘comfortably’.
A new report shows that many Americans do not make enough money to be able to afford fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment. Ohio’s current minimum wage was raised to $7.85 an hour in January and includes an annual cost-of-living escalator. Fortunately in Ohio the average family needs to earn only $13.79 an hour, which is lower than the national average, in order to live comfortably. More from Next City:
To comfortably afford housing in the U.S. in 2013, according to the NLIHC, a renter must earn $18.79 an hour. That is much higher than the $14.32 hourly wage earned by the average renter, and more than double the $7.25 national minimum wage (not to mention President Obama’s proposed increase to a $9 minimum wage).
Beyond the grim big picture, data shows that blacks and Hispanics carry an added burden. While over half of the people who cannot afford housing are white, 48 percent of all African-American families and 46.6 percent of Hispanic families have insufficient income to pay the average fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment ($977), according to analysis by the Poverty and Race Research Action Council.
