The National Low Income Housing Coalition recently released its annual Out of Reach Report. Out of Reach documents the significant gap between renters’ wages and the cost of rental housing across the United States. The report’s central statistic, the Housing Wage, is an estimate of the hourly wage a full-time worker must earn to afford a modest rental home at HUD’s fair market rent (FMR) without spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs, the accepted standard of affordability. The FMR is an estimate of what a family moving today can expect to pay for a modestly priced rental home in a given area.
The Out of Reach report also included its analysis on Texas’ rental market and state housing wage. It found that in Texas, the Fair Market Rent (FMR) for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,303, an 11 percent increase from last year. To afford this level of rent and utilities — without paying more than 30 percent of income on housing — a household must earn $4,345 monthly or $52,134 annually. Assuming a 40-hour work week, 52 weeks per year, this level of income translates into an hourly Housing Wage of: $25.06 per hour.