If you're in the market to rent a two-bedroom home in Washington, you'll want to make sure you can earn at least double the minimum wage.
A report released this month by the National Low Income Housing Coalition ranks Washington seventh among states with the highest dollar amount for a two-bedroom housing wage.
The estimated full-time hourly wage a household needs to afford a decent rental home at Housing and Urban Development’s Fair Market Rent (FMR) while spending no more than 30% of their income on housing costs is $27.78. That works out to an annual salary of $57,783.
Washington's FMR, which is estimated by what a family moving today can expect to pay for a modestly priced rental home, for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,445, according to the Housing Coalition.
Washington’s current minimum wage is $12 an hour. The average renter’s wage is $20.06 per hour, which is still nearly $8 short of the amount needed to afford a two-bedroom rental.
In Seattle, the minimum wage is higher – $16 for large employers and $15 for small employers – and the average renter is making $25.61 per hour. However, a two-bedroom rental is still out of reach if renters don't want to spend more than 30% of their income on rent. The report found a two-bedroom rental in Seattle cost $1,899, which would require workers to make $36.52 per hour to afford it.
A map distributed by the NLIHC shows King County residents need to work more than 80 hours a week at minimum wage to afford a one-bedroom rental home at fair market rent:
The report found Tacoma was more affordable with workers needing to make $24.33 per hour to afford a $1,265 per month two-bedroom unit. However, the average wage for Tacoma renters was $15.54 per hour.
In Spokane, the hourly wage needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment is $17.02. The FMR in Spokane County is $885, according to the NLIHC.
Over the past 30 years, the report has demonstrated that the cost of a modest rental home is out of reach for low-wage workers and other extremely low-income renters.
But the struggle isn’t confined to low-income workers. The average renter’s hourly wage is $5.39 less than the national two-bedroom Housing Wage and $1.08 less than the one-bedroom Housing Wage, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
As a result, the average renter has to work 52 hours per week to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment.