http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/05/mapping-the-hourly-wage-needed-to-rent-a-2-bedroom-apartment-in-every-us-state/394142/

Yes, the American economy is improving, and yes, we’re creating more jobs. But the hourly wages for a lot of these jobs arestagnant at best. According to the Pew Research Center, 30 percent of America’s workforce earns a near-minimum-wage salary—that’s almost 21 million people. As a cruel paradox, rents across the country keep rising.

A new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition examines how these opposite trends play out regionally. The work maps how much an American worker needs to earn per hour in each state to rent a two-bedroom apartment. It finds that in no state can a person earning minimum wage afford such an apartment at market rent.

God Damn.  Thankfully you should be able to find roomate to share the load, but if one of them doesn't have a job and you're needing to cover the cost for a while...that could hurt.

In other words, if you don't make enough money to comfortably pay rent, don't rent your own apartment, and leave the west coast.

Or a major urban environment like Metropolitan NYC.

Goddamn, this is such horseshit.

Note that this news story originally came from Vox with the sensationalist head-line of: “A full-time minimum-wage job won’t get you a 1-bedroom apartment anywhere in America.” Which, isn't actually true.

What is true is that a single-earner household wherein the worker earns minimum wage cannot afford their rent and utilities in the average "fair market value" apartment in any U.S. state for less than 30pc of their income. There's nothing wrong with the NLIHC study, per se, but I don't know why we expect--especially at a state level--for a single-minimum wage earner to comfortably cover rent and utilities given the fact that half of these renters are under 25 and will have a disproportionate propensity to have some kind of multi-earner arrangement.

Furthermore, state- and even county-level studies of housing costs don't tell us as much as we would like them to, given the existence of low-rent areas within these states and counties which aren't properly accounted for by the research. There is a great deal of variability in rent, even in places like New York City.

Using the metric of affordability, the study shows that the ceiling is $377/month. You can rent in Houston for $366/month, New Orleans for $370/month, Oklahoma City for $399/month, Cleveland for $395/month and Philadelphia for $400/month for two bedrooms.

Finally, why is the minimum wage being cast as the suspect here? If anybody actually bothers to do three minutes of research they'll realise it's the flattening of housing construction since the recession which is probably driving higher rents, as is the case here in the UK too.

You can't live IN those cities - you can live outside of them. It's always cheaper to live on the outskirts of a major metro area.

I see your point, but I was mainly trying to demonstrate the claim that single-earner minimum wage households can't reasonably afford rent and utilities anywhere is itself incredibly disingenuous.

Furthermore, state- and even county-level studies of housing costs don't tell us as much as we would like them to, given the existence of low-rent areas within these states and counties which aren't properly accounted for by the research. There is a great deal of variability in rent, even in places like New York City.

In Charleston, SC, for example (where I'm moving), a 3-bedroom 2.5-bath place in Mt. Pleasant might run you $1,200/mo. while a similar house ten minutes down the road in Charleston could cost upwards of $4,000/mo.

The prices don't just vary by state, they vary wildy depending on what street you're living on, whether you're facing north or south, and even by your distance to the nearest bus/tram stop.

It's the reason why I feel like people either aren't looking hard enough or (most likely) have set their expectations for what they can afford at the age of 20 a bit too high.

In other words, if you don't make enough money to comfortably pay rent, don't rent your own apartment, and leave the west coast.

Also,  don't rent a two bedroom apartment if you  don't have  someone to fill. the other room