How much do you need to earn to afford renting an apartment in the U.S.

On average, Americans need to earn $21.21 per hour to rent a two-bedroom. And it’s even worse in big cities.

If you work in the fastest-growing occupation in the United States–as a personal care aide assisting elderly and disabled people–you probably earn a little more than minimum wage. But that’s not enough to afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in the country. In more than 99% of American counties, it’s not even enough to make a one-bedroom affordable.

A new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition maps out the wage a full-time worker needs to make for a simple apartment or rental house to be affordable – meaning spending less than 30% of the income on housing costs –  in each county in the U.S.

The 2017 national Housing Wage is $21.21 per hour for a two-bedroom rental home, or more than 2.9 times higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. The 2017 Housing Wage for a one-bedroom rental home is $17.14, or 2.4 times higher than the federal minimum wage.

So a full-time worker earning the minimum wage needs to work 117 hours per week for all 52 weeks of the year to afford a two-bedroom rental home or 94.5 hours per week for a one-bedroom rental home. While low-wage workers have seen pay increases over the past two years, they still struggle to find rental homes they can afford, the report states.

The net worth of Americans rose to $94.8 trillion in the first quarter of 2017

The situation is very bad in some cities. In San Francisco, you would need to earn $58.04 an hour to afford a humble two-bedroom apartment at a fair rent. In California, the housing wage needed to afford a two-bedroom is $30.92 an hour; at minimum wage, meaning working 118 hours a week.

Another surprising conclusion of the study is that six of the seven occupations projected to add the greatest number of jobs by 2024 provide a median wage that is not sufficient to afford a modest one-bedroom rental home. Also, an extremely low income (ELI) household whose income is less than the poverty level or 30% of their area’s median cannot afford the average cost of a modest one-bedroom rental home in any state.

More than 20 million renters cannot afford to meet their other basic needs

According to the study, despite a minimum wage higher than the federal level in 29 states, the District of Columbia, and a growing number of local jurisdictions, in no state, metropolitan area, or county can a full-time minimum-wage worker afford a modest two-bedroom rental home. In only 12 counties can a full-time minimum-wage worker afford a modest one-bedroom rental home. The high cost of rental housing has resulted in more than 11.2 million severely cost-burdened renter households spending more than half of their income on housing. Many low income households cannot spend as much as half of their income on housing without sacrificing other basic necessities.

“More than 20 million renter households live in housing poverty, meaning they cannot afford to meet their other basic needs like food, transportation, medical care, and other goods and services after they pay for their housing. While renters across income groups experience challenges with housing affordability in some communities, the difficulties extremely low income households face in finding an affordable home are pervasive and exist in every community. Extremely low income households account for nearly 73% of all severely cost-burdened renters.” the report states.

In terms of demand, the rental housing market continues to experience strong demand. A record 43.3 million households were renters in 2016, representing a 26.5% increase since 2006.  On the other hand, the homeownership rate dropped from 68.8% to 63.4%. As a result of the increased demand for rental housing, the rental vacancy rate in the U.S. declined from 9.8% in the 4th quarter of 2006 to 6.9% in the 4th quarter of 2016, according to U.S. Census Bureau.

Income has not kept up with the rising cost of rental housing

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the rental cost of a primary residence rose 31.9% over those ten years, which was higher than overall inflation of 19.1%. Household income has not kept up with the rising cost of rental housing. From the housing crisis of 2007 to 2015, the median gross rent for a rental home in the U.S. increased by 6%, after adjusting for overall inflation, while the median income for renter households rose by just 1% and median income for all households declined by 4%.

And the bad news doesn’t stop there. Demand for rental housing will likely continue to rise, according to researchers at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. They predict an additional 4.7 million renter households by 2025 from household growth, even if homeownership rates stabilize. They project far more additional renter households if homeownership continues to decline.

The report also notes that U.S. doesn’t lack the resources, as the country spends around $200 billion each year on housing subsidies. But a big part of all that money goes to the rich in the form of tax deductions on mortgage payments. More exactly, 83% of the money the government spends on housing is directed to households making more than $100,000 a year, and more than three-quarters goes to families making more than $200,000.

But still, there are 55 million households that earn less than $50,000 a year.