Low-Income Workers Seeing Housing Woes

[West Coast Democrat]

(Minimal inflation? whatever!!)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040720/ap_on_bi_ge/affordable_housing

WASHINGTON - Pay raises for many low- and moderate-income jobs generally aren't keeping up with soaring housing costs, with workers like janitors and sales clerks most often feeling the pinch, said a study being released Tuesday by an affordable housing coalition.

In 2003, the median salary in those two occupations was over $18,000 a year, up 3 percent for janitors and 6 percent for clerks, the report from the Center for Housing Policy said. The median monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in 2003 was $791, up 10 percent from $721.

Generally, housing is considered affordable if a family pays no more than 30 percent of its income. The study of 136 of the nation's largest housing markets found that in only 25 markets did both janitors and clerks make enough money to comfortably afford the rent if their families were relying on only one income.

[mermaid]

1. And They Call This A Roaring Economy??

Roaring, myabe, for the disgustingly wealthy. shit for the rest of us, though

[West Coast Democrat]

2. Another important snippet from the article....

"You would think that on the homeownership side that lower interest rates would make a difference, but it doesn't really because the level of home prices has increased dramatically," said Barbara Lipman, who studied the data for the center, the research affiliate of the National Housing Conference coalition.

(I've been wondering for some time why and how people are buying into this market)

[TahitiNut]

3. Shelter is 29.6% to 31.8% of the CPI (-W and -U respectively)

Despite the fact that rental properties are not refinanced annually, the rents charged reflect a combination of the property's market value and mortgage rates. Thus, when mortgage rates go up, so does rent. This is excerbated or ameliorated, of course, by supply/demand factors, but vacancies don't drive down new rental rates since existing tenants tend to anchor the rates.

I've often found it interesting that taxes aren't separately identified as a component of the CPI.

[mermaid]

5. OH, MAN!!!

Dude...WHO made that quote in your sig line, about flight 93!!

I wanna USE that...but ONLY if I may properly credit the person who originally spoke or penned those words!

[TahitiNut]

9. Ahhh... Thank you! I feel very honored.

I replied to your PM before seeing this post, but to reiterate: c'est moi.

See ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=641043#641259
("TahitiNut" June 23, 2004)
With able impetus from a synergistic exchange with DoYouEverWonder in Cocoa's thread.

BTW... Your sig reminds me of the first time I heard a person say "I want to be the kind of person my dog sees when he looks at me." (As I later found out, that's an attributable quote but I don't know to whom.) It blew me away. I'm a dog-lover. Obviously.


Heck, I've been thinking I was perhaps excessively navel-gazing by putting my own words into a sig -- but it's about as close as I've gotten to encapsulating that particular feeling.

[mermaid]

11. Thank You

There wasn't enough room, in my available space for my sig here (as a non-donor) to attribute the dog quote...so I'll tell you here that it is a Will rogers quote.

It is one of my email signatures, and there, it is properly attributed.

Similarly, i wish to make the quote I mention an option for email signature quotes...but only if it can be properly attributed.

I, too, am a dog lover. I have an adorable 3 year old black lab/german shepherd mix, spayed female named Lyric.

[SoCalDem]

4. $18K divided by 52 weeks = $346.15 before taxes..

assuming they take home 85%....that's only 294.23...In a 4 payday month, they would start with $1176.92....minus $791.00...and they have a whopping $385.92 left over.... to cover..

food
car insurance
medical insurance/medicine
car payment/expenses
gasoline
utilities

and all the other things that cost money..

Even in a two-earner family..if they had similar incomes, they would still have less than $800 a month to cover all the necessities of life :(

[fortyfeetunder]

6. and taxes...

These people would be in the lowest tax bracket...not to mention all the sales taxes associated with living expenses.

[hatrack]

8. Hey, I really like your sig-line graphic of Barbara Bush

Where'd you turn that up? :evilgrin:

[SoCalDem]

13. I wish she had her pearls on..

:)

[Aunt Anti-bush]

7. Our housing expense is 47% of our income.

That sucks! Cross your fingers for us, though. We may have found a slightly cheaper apartment. I can only hope because we're barely scraping by each month.

[lovuian]

10. Well try to take a look at Health Insurance Costs

and explain how you live on that with other costs

Pretty Please!!! :eyes:

[Terran]

12. This issue is one big reason why raising the minimum wage

is so important. A truly "living wage" in most areas is between $12 and $15 per hour. So Kerry's plan to raise the minimum to $7 is a step in the right direction. The minimum wage has been lagging absurdly behind actual costs for housing for many years.