The San Francisco Bay Area and adjacent coastal region are the least affordable for renters nationwide, according to the 2023 Out of Reach Report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Metro areas comprising Santa Clara and Monterey counties and the Santa Cruz and San Francisco metros are the top four.
In Santa Cruz-Watsonville, south of San Francisco, the Housing Wage (HW) is $63.31 an hour to rent a two-bedroom apartment, if 30% of the wages go to housing. In the SF Bay Area, renters require a $61.31 HW for a two-bedroom apartment. Meanwhile, the HW in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara is $56.56 to rent a two-bedroom apartment.
Rental affordability issue is a stark issue statewide. “In California, the Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $2,197,” according to the report’s authors. “In order to afford this level of rent and utilities in California—without paying more than 30% of income on housing—a household must earn $7,323 monthly or $87,877 annually. Assuming a 40-hour workweek, 52 weeks per year, this level of income translates into an hourly wage of $42.25.”
The Golden State’s minimum wage is $15.50 an hour, with increases set annually. By this math, a two-bedroom apartment renting for $2,197 monthly would require the annual income of about three minimum-wage workers laboring 40-hours a week, over 52 weeks. (There are also municipal minimum wage ordinances in California that are higher than the state wage.)
In the Golden State, the most populous in the nation, market imbalances rule. The demand for rental housing far exceeds the supply, a burden that falls on low-wage workers particularly.
“Across California,” according to the annual NLIHC report, “there is a shortage of rental homes affordable and available to extremely low income households, whose incomes are at or below the poverty guideline or 30% of their area median income. Many of these households are severely cost burdened, spending more than half of their income on housing. Severely cost burdened poor households are more likely than other renters to sacrifice other necessities like healthy food and healthcare to pay the rent, and to experience unstable housing situations like evictions.”
While the minimum wage in the Golden State of $15.50 an hour is double the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, rental housing affordability is a national problem.
“In no state,” the annual NLIHC report continues, “metropolitan area, or county in the US can a worker earning the federal or prevailing state or local minimum wage afford a modest two-bedroom rental home at fair market rent by working a standard 40-hour work week.”
The social implications are staggering in a nation where a mass of the populace is facing such dire conditions, the enemy of health, mental and physical. To say this is a housing crisis might be an understatement. Maybe a more accurate description is a housing emergency. If the latter works better in terms of progressive meanings and messaging, then one conclusion of mine seems clear: the need for a movement to push politicians who represent the interests of their campaign funders to address the housing emergency.
See the report at https://nlihc.org/oor
Seth Sandronsky lives and works in Sacramento. He is a journalist and member of the Pacific Media Workers Guild. Email sethsandronsky@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2023
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