A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment. Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
That's because a billionaire from Germany named Peter Thiel (Palantir) needs a 10 billion dollar contract from America's defense fund using a "GROWING WARTIME DEMAND" to get it. They say he is extremely private. Probably bc he created a reason to rob our government. Like Elon musk and SpaceX.
I make 20 an hour, and due to hours availability only get 20-26 hours a week(if i were able to work up to my health limitations, I'd be working 35). The only way i could afford the cheapest apartments in my area was sharing a 3 bedroom with 3 roommates
Obviously. The rich have been stealing our money for over a generation
Private equity ruins everything.
~whispers~ and a reminder that I wrote a book about this very thing. "When work no longer provides stability, when wages are too low and rents are too high, when millions are one medical bill, one missed paycheck, one rent hike away from losing their homes—who, exactly, is secure?"
A few more stats: Nearly a third of the country's workforce—roughly 52 million people—earns under $15/hr. 12.1 million low-income tenants are now "severely cost burdened," spending at least half their income on rent. About 50% of people in homeless shelters—and 40% of those unsheltered—have jobs.
When I wrote above that in no city, metro area, or state is a 2-bedroom affordable on minimum wage, that's based on local minimum wages, often higher than federal—which hasn't been raised in 16 YEARS. The average U.S. minimum-wage worker must work *116 hours a week* to afford a 2-bedroom apartment.
sources (in the order they appear in thread): nlihc.org/oor/about www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/rese... www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/defaul... papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Some of the replies to this thread are so revealing. Even people making well above the federal minimum wage ($7.25) are struggling to stay housed in the richest country on earth.
This is the kind of data analysis that I like to review. Thank you for sharing the links.
Thanks, I've just bought a copy on Audible. We in Canada have a similar problem.
Says it all.
That's because, in many places, private equity has bought up housing and increased rents or made purchase beyond what working people can pay. Housing has become an investment vehicle instead of a basic right.
Most places they would be lucky to afford an efficiency apt.
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Don't worry conservative Christians run the country now and Jesus commands them to care for the poor. ........ hahahahahaha 🤣😂🤣 I'm sorry I just couldn't hold in my laughter.
While private equity screws up housing markets to make it worse
Yes that's by design, thank you for noticing.
Yup my crappy apartment costs $35,000 per year. Almost as much as a mortgage on a similiar apartment. "Why don't you buy one?" - try saving a deposit when you're paying near equivalent of a mortgage on rent.
I am gob-smacked! I thought Mississippi was still pretty cheap.
amazing. and this reminds me i owe you an email.
Homeowners aren't safe either! My monthly mortgage payment inexplicably jumped from $1760 to $1930 about 3 months ago. It's causing me serious budgetary issues. 😡
All by design. Homelessness is criminalized, you get incarcerated and “rented” out to companies for free labour.
let's put a little more agency to this headline— local city and property owners are pushing their workers into homelessness
While republicans celebrate funneling more and more money to the already far too rich who just hoard the money or use its power to have even more money funneled in their direction! #billionairesAreBadForAllLifeOnEarth
If a society does not provide food, housing, and healthcare to everyone, it has failed in its core purpose.
Prison stock owners are drooling, it's disgusting
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The older voting members of our nation see a +$20 hourly wage and think it’s great! They don’t do even a tiny bit of analysis to see what the buying power is at that rate and that’s really where we need to educate people.
Those in charge would like nothing more than for the US to be a big old company town with everyone working for them for low wages, all broke at the end of the month with no ability to save enough to get out of that bind
I've been saying for decades, our system, both parties, long to give their donors, all of us, over to the company store.
Thought this might interest you www.decaturish.com/news/decatur...
oh, thanks for sharing!
"In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country..." 1/2
"By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living." – FDR
And the largest growing homeless population is over the age of 50!
But damn, those billionaires can finally stop worrying. 👍🏼
Fully one third of Americans are forced to live on 2x the federal poverty level or less. Decade in, decade out. And because they use credit cards so desperately, they end up paying at least 25% more for everything they charge, than those who can pay cash, or pay off their cards monthly.
I will never forgive/forget after Katrina a Discover card rep chastised me as someone that didn’t take my commitments seriously. Amex and Visa gave me a 3 month reprieve but then charged me 29.99 percent in 2005. EarthLink internet kept charging me even though I had no electricity..
Holy sh!t, Henry! You are the person for whom Elizabeth Warren created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Which Trump, Inc. has also gutted, if not shut down, IIRC.
They would have trouble getting a studio apt in some of those cities.
Most politicians cannot afford to live in Washington DC. Washington DC is too expensive. They commute from Virginia or Maryland.
Two bedroom? How can they even afford a one bedroom?
How else can they get people into labor camps for the rest of their lives if not criminalizing homelessness?
This is the truth. Heck, they couldn't afford a one bedroom apartment.
2 bedroom? You'd be lucky affording a studio off full time minimum wage in almost any state, even those with high min wages.
There are so many places that someone cannot afford a 1 bedroom or even a studio.
If only greedy companies, CEOs and Republicans weren’t anti-worker.
More years ago than I like to think, I got my first full time in industry job as a computer operator making $12 per hour. I couldn't figure out how to spend that much money without being stupid. We need that sort of economy again.
and they put this on the opinion page. assholes
Read an article during trump's first WH about a group who looked for the cheapest 2 br apt in US. They found ONLY ONE in Arkansas but two people would have to make $13 and change. I'm sure that has changed. MAGA wants to slash the HOME Investment Partnership Program started by George H.W. Bush
Can one person making minimum wage even afford a modest studio apartment? Would they need to have an employed roommate to split the cost to be able to afford it? What about a one bedroom apartment? (Yes, I understand more bedrooms are needed if living with children)
Can’t speak for other cities, but in mine, the full-time minimum wage worker would be paying 92% of their (before-taxes) income for an average studio apartment.
American fascism I'm action, often supported by the New York Times
And making being homeless criminal, all so they can have more prisoners doing slave labor. You all know that's the plan, right? Turn as many people as possible into prisoners who work for free.
Everyone is one step away from physical disability. JDisabled Vance has a mother who works in mental health care. His offensive, dehumanizing behavior toward others is a reflection of his lack of character-any character or morality. His Anti-Christ mentor suits him perfectly.
In college I had a professor that would say everybody is one step away from being homeless. I've never forgotten that.
My mentor in university once told me: (1989 words) “We are all handicapped. We are physical, emotional, spiritual and intelligent beings. In some area of each person’s life they are handicapped. There are no perfect people.”
The problem is that you have many parasitical classes in western society, and many of those parasites - like landlords - have parasites of their own - like Republican politicians.
And now Taco is demanding the re-opening of insane asylums to house the homeless.
And that’s FACTS!
We live in the land of I've got mine More for me And less for thee That is the way It's supposed to be
I make $ 20.45 an hour. Average 54 hours a week. There is no way I can afford any type of apartment or dwelling, without having to resort to junky beat up old vehicle, bare minimum food, and myself not going to the doctor.
That’s the point being raised here. Depending on where you live, and the benefits you get (healthcare/dental/vision/retirement) $20.45 pr hr is not enough to live comfortably. The equations get even more complicated if we add in children.
T1hen they'll disappear us.
In most urban areas, you can’t even afford the one bedroom apartment. Boston? Seattle? Forget about it you’ll be damn lucky to find a studio.
A studio (400 sq ft) in Seattle is $2k+ with street parking
Doesn't even have to be particularly urban. Within 30 miles of a college town in Oregon is all it takes for a studio apartment to go for $1000/mo.
They need us all desperate, when you are worried about your next meal, nothing else matters.
If the people can still eat but barely, that’s the time revolutions (popular uprisings) happen. Start organizing chaps and chapettes, it’s down to you.
In more 'primitive' times, our society built public housing. Now, the homeless are chased around by the cops, when not working, while those of us still housed fret that we may not be soon. The best our government can come up with at present seems to be ethnic cleansing as a housing policy.
One missed paycheck and it’s over. Bye bye home and car.
And this is just what they want for our country.
You can see it far better than the rest of us— it’s a recipe for mass incarceration. These wealthy f*ckers literally want to build a prison planet. If workers don’t unite and demand their rights (more than that!) these neo-industrial-complex-slavers might succeed.
This is why organized labor can be important again. If not for establishing contracts, then to force the creation and enforcement of laws for greater wages and worker protections...
Isn’t this intentional? Put them into those camps they’re building and make them work for shelter.
Yes as it’s the work-around of slavery.
If you have privilege, the least you can do is refuse to accept that there is “too far left” in our politics right now. I live in the Seattle area. I’m constantly hearing the concern, even among reliable Democrat voters, that Seattle is going “radical left” again. Ask them what that means…
they are also likely at work today
I'd be shocked if there's a city where a minimum wage worker can afford even a one bedroom apartment.
What I have trouble getting my head around is, why do so many people living on the edges of society, continually vote against interest. They repeatedly vote for those who institute and advocate for punitive public policies.
Short answer is they've been lied to
OK, I get that. However, is one being lied to, if they are hearing what they want to hear? Most of the lies they believe are not even very good lies.
Yes, a lie that you want to believe is still a lie. Especially since the long version is they've been lied to a lot more than you probably realize. "What they want to hear" is already based on other lies.
But, if narrative fits one’s worldview, is it a lie? Or is confirmation of one’s twisted reality. In the end, the effects will be the same, but it does question the justifications used to defend really bad things.
Because for decades the driving appeal of a candidate is that they remove the idea of personal responsibility and accountability. The greatest fear in this country is that a person is where they are merely based on their choices and abilities. We need privilege and the status quo to deflect blame.
You may be right. It is just mind warping to contemplate how some folk minds work.
I don’t think their minds do work. They never learned how to rationalize, compromise, or to just be aware. They stopped maturing in high school and gave just gotten angrier, greedier, and more prone to bias and scapegoats as they age.
Can’t argue against any thing you said. I have taken to describing them as having arrested development. Their problem is they are angry at the wrong people. Certain politicians are taking advantage of their self imposed ignorance.
Or, are they just NOT voting???
They are voting, just not for their own best interests. There is just a huge disconnect between what they want to believe, and what really is. They don’t seem to understand those whom they vote for, always seem to betray them. They then take their moral outrage out everyone but themselves.
33% of eligible voters DID NOT vote in the 2020 Presidential election.
That’s true.
Genuinely, who do you mean by "they"? Many rural poor would benefit from the option to move to low cost urban housing. But I haven't seen much reporting about poor city dwellers voting against their interest, and in America there's bipartisan hostility at the city level to helping poor residents.
apnews.com/article/trum...
Thanks for sharing this, I hadn't seen it
Also, your book sounds interesting. I am adding it to my reading list.
Thank you so much, that means a lot
The only way to truly understand the world is read intellectually and converse openly with good people. P.S. I am ordering it from someone OTHER than Amazon.
I try to share useful information. I saw it during my mourning read. I have found reading, even skimming, more informative than TV &radio news.
Many of the economically disadvantaged especially in rural areas don’t understand how they benefit from programs that they perceive as “urban” (e.g. Black programs) like housing and food assistance.
Oh yeah absolutely. Which is part of the reason I asked. So much of our political coverage codes "rural" (and "working class") as white voters with agency, while treating poor Black people who live in cities as passive beneficiaries of those programs. It does lead to misunderstandings.
Absolutely.
I'm a full time teaching professor and I can't afford a studio apartment in the town in which I work. Meanwhile, LIHTC housing providers project my income at $7k/yr higher than what my contract is worth (they don't know how to deal with teachers). Last year, I only narrowly avoided living in my car.
1/2 History: In 1807 you could rent an entire frontier home in Marietta Ohio for the vast sum of $70 per year. Of course Thomas Jefferson was our third President then and owned slaves. When he was born in 1743 he was assigned one the same age. Ohio's state Constitution would have contained a provi
sion allowing continued slave ownership if not for Ephraim Cutler who was a deciding vote to the passing of the "1787 Northwest Ordinance abolishing slavery" in the new territory that would become out 17th state in 1807.
Wages are part of the problem. Affordable & available housing is the other part. I now how someone who is working but can’t find affordable housing staying with me. I will keep my “too big” house indefinitely.
This is happening because the GOP managed to undermine Unions in very effective ways, while convincing blue collar workers that they were on their side.
Great piece Brian! Captures something I've been trying to articulate here recently. Urbanist ideas that don't prioritize people who are struggling in our cities can't work, because our cities can't work without them. #AddUrbanism+
Our cities could be managed differently. This is a political choice. bsky.app/profile/poli...
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You mean not even a studio apt.
Ty, bro.
It started with Reagan. The rest is history.
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The rents have doubled, or more compared to 15 years ago. And now there is the requirement you must have 3x the income to rent, which was not the standard in the 2000s. The government wants homelessness.
I see it every day...
It is a politically charged thinning of the herd. Poverty kills. MAGA & Trump are counting on it. 🇺🇸
