The Rent is too Damn High

Via Mock Paper Scissors:

We got trouble:

"People working minimum wage jobs full-time cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any state in the country, the National Low Income Housing Coalition's annual "Out of Reach" report finds. In 93% of U.S. counties, the same workers can't afford a modest one-bedroom….

"Given each state and locality's minimum wage, the report finds that the average minimum wage worker in the U.S. would need to work nearly 97 hours per week to afford the average two-bedroom home. That's more than two full-time jobs."

Housing should be a human right. The American Dream/Nightmare has always been a bit of a bait and switch. But how can working people escape the poverty trap if there are not places that they can afford to live?

I have read recently that the Venture Capitalists have taken to buying entire new subdivisions and renting out the homes at exorbitant rates because there is nothing that late-era capitalism and capitalists cannot make worse.

"They don't have to conspire," as Gay Talese once said of the rich, "because they all think alike."