Minimum wage won't cover most rent, utilities

A new study confirms what I already knew. From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Most Americans who rely on just a full-time job earning the federal minimum wage cannot afford the rent and utilities on a one- or two-bedroom apartment, an advocacy group on low-income housing reported today.

For a two-bedroom rental alone, the typical worker must earn at least $15.37 an hour -- nearly three times the federal minimum wage, the National Low Income Housing Coalition said in its annual "Out of Reach" report.

That figure assumes that a family spends no more than 30 percent of its gross income on rent and utilities -- anything more is generally considered unaffordable by the government.

Yet many poor Americans are paying more than they can afford because wage increases haven't kept up with increases in rent and utilities, said Danilo Pelletiere, the coalition's research director.

Click here for the rest.

American workers are currently the most productive in the world, and that productivity has been on an upswing for some years now. However, all the new profits that come from this increased productivity have gone into the pockets of already wealthy business owners--this is part of an overall, deliberate, thirty-year long shift of wealth from ordinary Americans to rich Americans. Never mind the overwhelming sense of economic injustice here: if the US business sector continues to deny workers their due, the consumption that keeps the engines of the US economy continually humming will end, taking the economy with it. Business is committing suicide for short term profits, and everyone will eventually be screwed for it.

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